Star Tribune
Researchers pore through dusty records, modern databases to identify every creature and plant in Minnesota
Some of the records are in journals filed away in cabinets of small universities across the state. Some are in the hand-scribbled notes that priests and nuns used a century ago to teach about Minnesota’s plants. Others are in the meticulously kept collections, computers and notebooks of professors, bird watchers and botanists.
Now the goal is to get all known records of every living thing that’s been found in Minnesota into a single public online database — the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas.
“There might be a specimen of a very rare thing in some of these smaller collections,” said George Weiblen, the science director of the University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum. “That’s where we find these little gems. The answers to some of our big questions are potentially sitting in a cabinet somewhere, and now is the time to get them, before we lose a lot of these old notebooks.”
Weiblen and other researchers with the Bell Museum are painstakingly expanding the atlas to include the collections and biodiversity records of other colleges, agencies and nonprofit groups across the state. This month they began adding thousands of insect, plant and animal records from Concordia College and Minnesota State University Moorhead.
When it’s finished, the atlas will be the most comprehensive record of living things in the state and offer biologists and wildlife managers a powerful tool to find out where and why species are struggling the most, and where they are thriving.
The work comes as the world faces a mass extinction crisis, as countless species in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest are being lost to habitat destruction, climate change and pesticides.
The biodiversity atlas doesn’t just show what’s been lost; it can be used to map out how certain species are spreading and predict where plants and animals are going to be in the near future, Weiblen said.
“Our environment is changing faster than ever before in human history,” he said. “Change is challenging for all of us. We don’t like change. We don’t like things we can’t control. But those are two of the most fundamental aspects of nature. So we’re going to need to adapt.”
The online atlas was created in 2016 with the digitization of the Bell Museum’s vast records in St. Paul. It’s now grown to more than 650,000 records of plants and animals, ranging from beetles and minnows to moose and bear.
It’s already helped scientists understand one of the region’s more drastic die-offs.
In 2019, researchers at the College of William and Mary in Virginia used the atlas, along with similar databases in Wisconsin and other parts of the Midwest, to find out when the massive decline of monarch butterflies began. The leading theory at the time had been that herbicides used on genetically modified crops over the last few decades killed off the milkweed that monarch caterpillars needed to survive.
But researchers found that Minnesota’s milkweed has been steadily disappearing since the 1940s, long before modified crops became widely used. The consolidation of smaller farms and the loss of farmland to development most likely are the main factors in the decline of monarchs, the study concluded.
“It’s research like that that really helps us decide where we need to focus our efforts here,” Weiblen said.
The collections at Concordia College and Minnesota State Moorhead will help fill in a gap in the atlas of western Minnesota species, especially insects.
Concordia has collected more than 4,500 specimens of insects, including tiger beetles, a wide variety of bees and other prairie natives, said Joseph Whittaker, a biologist and professor at Concordia.
“The great thing about this is that it makes these collections and this data really approachable for the public,” he said. “It will help scientists who need to find specific specimens to study genetics, and it’s going to help third-grade teachers and students and just interested people find the spread of rare species, and learn more about what’s in their backyard.”
While the atlas does show species in decline, it also shows an impressive resilience in wildlife, Weiblen said.
Minnesota’s recent history shows how quickly species can bounce back if given the right attention, he said, pointing to the recovery of eagles, wolves and peregrine falcons.
Sometimes the solutions are relatively simple and cheap.
Digging out a series of shallow oxbow ponds a few feet deep and less than 100 yards long seems to have entirely saved one of Minnesota’s most endangered fish — the Topeka shiner.
The towering old cottonwood trees that have been dying off in the Mississippi River’s flood plains are starting to come back. All it took was digging small trenches to provide a fresh layer of silt for seedlings to take root, Weiblen said.
“Sometimes we just have to pay attention, we just have to get out there and look at stuff,” he said.
The hope is the atlas will encourage more people to start logging what they see and when, and to keep adding more observations.
Some take him up on it and fret when he’s not around.
“It is nice to be missed and be part of the school’s culture,” Arzola said. But mostly, he added, he wants kids to know that police aren’t around just for when the bad stuff happens. He’ll hand out his stickers and bracelets, even a trading card bearing his image. Then, they’ll talk about dogs and family.
School resource officer Al Arzola talks to students in his office at John Adams Middle School in Rochester on Oct. 11. (Leila Navidi/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Two months ago, Rochester played host to a three-day training session for new SROs from across the state — an event organized by the Minnesota School Safety Center. On the final day, the 26 officers learned about surveillance challenges at the other school where Arzola works: Dakota Middle School.
It is a beautiful building with a scenic view. There is a lot of glass, too. Arzola, handling the role of instructor and tour guide, took the group outside and noted how one could look straight through the entrance to the large groups that gather inside. There were no curbs in front, either.
“There is nothing stopping any vehicle whatsoever from going through my front doors,” Arzola told the officers. “Law enforcement wasn’t talked to before this building was made. It was kind of like, ‘Here it is. You’re the SRO. Do what you do.’”
He showed them his office, too, which is separate from the main office and near those of other school support staff members. That makes sense, said Jenny Larrive, SRO coordinator for the Minnesota School Safety Center, given than SROs spend more time connecting with youth than on actual law enforcement.
“The basic rule in Minnesota is you cannot preemptively post law enforcement at a polling place,” he said. “A city can’t say, ‘Wow, Precinct Two, there’s a lot of intensity there, let’s just put a cop at the door.’”
Simon doesn’t go deep into the details on security, though. “I don’t want to give a total road map to the bad guys,” he said.
But testimony at the Capitol last year on behalf of the new law bolstering protections for election and polling place workers indicated there’s room for concern. One election worker was followed to her car by an angry voter; the head of elections in another county was called repeatedly on her home phone during off hours, and an official was lunged at by an aggrieved voter, forcing her to call the local sheriff.
Those who violate the law could now face civil damages and penalties of up to $1,000 for each violation.
The Brennan Center survey indicated more than four in 10 election leaders were concerned about recruiting enough poll workers due to threats of harassment and intimidation. This includes doxing — publishing a person’s personal information online in a threatening manner — and swatting, fake emergency calls that result in an armed response being sent to someone’s home.
“Election officials are working to prepare for everything right now,” said Liz Howard, director of partnership engagement at the Brennan Center. “More than 90% of election officials have made improvements to election security since 2020.”
Star Tribune
Daylight saving time ends next weekend. This is how to prepare for the potential health effects
The good news: You will get a glorious extra hour of sleep. The bad: It’ll be dark as a pocket by late afternoon for the next few months in the U.S.
Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. local time next Sunday, Nov. 3, which means you should set your clock back an hour before you go to bed. Standard time will last until March 9 when we will again ”spring forward” with the return of daylight saving time.
That spring time change can be tougher on your body. Darker mornings and lighter evenings can knock your internal body clock out of whack, making it harder to fall asleep on time for weeks or longer. Studies have even found an uptick in heart attacks and strokes right after the March time change.
”Fall back” should be easier. But it still may take a while to adjust your sleep habits, not to mention the downsides of leaving work in the dark or trying exercise while there’s still enough light. Some people with seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression usually linked to the shorter days and less sunlight of fall and winter, may struggle, too.
Some health groups, including the American Medical Association and American Academy of Sleep Medicine, have said it’s time to do away with time switches and that sticking with standard time aligns better with the sun — and human biology.
Most countries do not observe daylight saving time. For those that do — mostly in Europe and North America — the date that clocks are changed varies.
Two states — Arizona and Hawaii — don’t change and stay on standard time.
Here’s what to know about the twice yearly ritual.
