Brian Eckenrod collects a soil sample near Mt. Rainier. Photo by Cathy Zabinski.

Take only photographs. Leave only footprints.

All of those who enjoy the out-of-doors have heard that admonition. But when restoring favorite camping sites, land managers will need to consider what's under the footprints, say Montana State University researchers.

Traditional campsite restoration has dealt with above-ground vegetation, but to get the above-ground plant community to grow quickly, scientists may need to boost the below ground "biota" of fungi, mites, nematodes, protazoa and hundreds of other micro-organisms that are part of the functioning ecosystem.

At least that's the direction indicated by preliminary evidence found by Brian Eckenrod and Cathy Zabinski of Montana State University.

Their initial measurements of "socially impacted" soils showed reduced microbial activity compared to nearby less-used or unused sites. That reduction could influence the success and speed of revegetating those sites. Because soil biota function may change with location, Eckenrod's research includes multiple sites near Emerald Lake south of Bozeman, Heart Lake in southwestern Montana near Superior, Glacier National Park and sites near Mt. Rainier in the Northern Cascades.

"If you can't restore social areas quickly, they will keep getting used. Unless we can get plants on these sites in one growing season, the disturbance will continue," says Eckenrod, a MSU graduate student in Land Resources and Environmental Sciences.

"There may be 40,000 bacterial species in a teaspoon of soil. We've identified only a fraction of them," says Zabinski, his advisor in LRES. For instance, there are 800 species of nematodes in a typical soil sample, but only about 20 of them have been scientifically identified and described. Both the named and unnamed species are part of the intricate web that recycles plant and animal litter into nutrients for the next season's plant growth.

The overwhelming number of unknown organisms and their interactions are humbling, but even without an intimate understanding, land managers must make decisions every day about use of the sites. If scientists were to wait until the entire ecosystem were understood, they would come up with only little bits and pieces of information.

Zabinski and Eckenrod have chosen a middle ground for Eckenrod's master's thesis. He will describe how disturbed, undisturbed and restored alpine systems are functioning based on several global measures, one of which is respiration that comes from soil samples taken back to the lab at MSU. The measurement of soil microbial activity is cut off after a few hours so respiration reflects immediate microbial response and not the increased response that might occur in the community with the addition of a carbon source over longer periods of time.

He'll also put litter bags in the soil and measure their decomposition rates after three, 12 and 15 months. He'll measure several other soil properties, from enzyme activity and soil compaction to the density of very small sub-surface fungi and soil nutrients. The work will look specifically at a type of microscopic fungi called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi that form a partnership with plants, colonizing their roots, receiving carbon from the plant in exchange for the fungi's help in delivering nutrients and water to the plant roots.

"We're looking at the microbial community by its function, and the hope is that one of these measures will be a good indication of restoration and disturbance," Zabinski added. "This work was initiated after I got inquiries from several national parks. Staff there asked how they could know how compromised a site was, so they could decide how extensive restoration needed to be."

Their data will provide the basis for more specific questions about disturbed sites.

Small places impacted by people, like camp sites, trails and roads, provide the best place to study the impacts on the soil.

"We couldn't do what we are doing on a huge site," says Eckenrod. "Camp sites have a heavily disturbed area with undisturbed areas nearby." That is exactly what he needed for his study.

The good news is that Eckenrod's work means he spends time at each of these beautiful, almost pristine, areas. Then it takes months of work in the lab to study the samples gathered in just one site visit. The sampling began in the summer of 2003 and will continue through the summer of 2005.

"They are ridiculously beautiful sites for field work, but then what follows are many many hours in the lab analyzing those samples. So you really have to enjoy those few days out there," Zabinski said.

story by Carol Flaherty, photo by Cathy Zabinski