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14 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • the factors of ecology are all here thomas m acbr i d e (1909, reprinted in Lannoo 1996, 27) wanted a field station where students could study nature in nature. For his site, he chose Okoboji—the lakes area of northwestern Iowa. Macbride knew what he was doing. Okoboji is edgy. From east to west, Okoboji marks a transition between ecoregions, from the eastern deciduous forest to the Great Plains. From north to south, Okoboji signals a shift from the recently glaciated landscape of the Minnesota lakes region to the much older and more dissected landscape of the Little Sioux Valley and ultimately the Missouri River Valley (Lannoo 1996, 11). Macbride’s placement of his Lab meant students could study the components of most major midwestern ecosystems within an easy hike or horseback, buckboard , sailboat, or train ride from the Lab grounds. As Debby Zieglowsky details (1985, 43), the origin of the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory was in, of all places, Hopkinton, Iowa, at the Lenox Collegiate Institution (prior to 1864 called Bowen Collegiate Institute, after 1884 called Lenox College; Lenox closed in 1944). In the early 1860s Samuel Calvin was on the faculty at Lenox and Thomas Macbride was his student. In 1874 Calvin moved to the State University of Iowa, where four years later Macbride joined him; together they constituted the Department of Natural Science. In those early days Macbride focused on botany, Calvin on geology and zoology. In 1890 a former student, Bohumil Shimek, joined Calvin and Macbride on the faculty. By the late 1890s this talented trio of naturalists had made several collecting trips to Okoboji and beyond to build their department’s meager geologic, botanic, and natural history holdings. Travel in those days was slow; as they collected they conversed, and one of the things they discussed was building a field station for natural history research in the Okoboji area. All three naturalists (ecology was at least a decade away from being the factors of ecology are all here • 15 recognized as a formal scientific discipline [Kohler 2006, 270]) recognized the uniqueness of the Okoboji landscape and therefore the distinctiveness of its plant and animal communities. As Macbride wrote in his 1909 report to the Iowa Academy of Science (reprinted in Lannoo 1996, 24–29): In the first place the topography of Dickinson country is peculiar, unique. Situated on the western border of the Iowa Wisconsin drift, the region illustrates , as possibly no other equal area in the state, the special characteristics, not only of glacial moraines in general, but in particular the very expression of the Wisconsin moraine. In fact, I think that it must be admitted that the Okoboji lakes and their encompassing hills do indeed form the finest bit of morainic topography to be found on our western prairie. Secondly, the region having Okoboji for its center is, by reason of the peculiar topography just mentioned, the field of a special floral display difficult to illustrate anywhere else within such narrow limits. We have a forest flora and a prairie flora; and neither in this part of the world has ever been adequately studied. It is believed that the fungal flora of the region, for instance , is especially rich and interesting. We have all kinds of habitat conditions , from aquatic to xerophytic. We have deep water, shallow water, but permanent; marshes, springs and [x]erophytic slopes and hill-tops, some so dry as to offer home to the vegetation of the higher western semi-arid plains. The plankton of the lakes is filled with desmids and diatoms and all manner of algal flora, during July and August rich beyond comparison in all that makes up the tide of life for these simple but fascinating forms. For similar reasons, the fauna of the lake district will reward our constant study. The varied flora, just described, insures a varied fauna. The waters teem with animal life. Probably the protozoa of the whole valley will be found hiding on the vegetation of these [quiet] lakes and pools. Of course the avian and vertebrate aquatic fauna are rich, and even the terrestrial vertebrates are likely to prove more than commonly worthy of investigation. While this is writing the papers tell of a mountain lion shot in one of the nearby marshy lakes! It is not believed that carnivores of size are likely to abound, not to such extent at least to warrant a future visit by our nimrodic ex-president [Teddy Roosevelt; Macbride is referring to...

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