The Bosque Needs Our Help: Research and Restoration

We are fortunate to have such a rich and diverse ecosystem here in our region, but the threats to the bosque are great and ever-increasing. Indeed, time is running short for its preservation. Although we will never be able to restore the valley to its natural condition, if we reduce our impact now we may be able to preserve some of its functional integrity. Our past and current modifications have severely altered the Middle Rio Grande bosque, thus requiring active management for future persistence of this ecosystem. Fortunately, restoration efforts are underway and various agencies governing land along the river are beginning to work together to develop strategies for conservation.

The conservation and restoration of ecosystems begins with ecological knowledge of the system in question. After the flow of the Rio Grande had been regulated and the shape of the river channel had been altered for many years, scientists began to recognize problems within the bosque ecosystem. Research designed to help scientists better understand the system began in 1986 when two University of New Mexico professors (Drs. Clifford Crawford and Manuel Molles) began a course called Bosque Biology. This course, which is still taught today, takes graduate and undergraduate students into the bosque to collect data on a variety of population and ecosystem components, such as litterfall, arthropod activity and ground water levels. This research raised questions about the effects of eliminating flooding from the riparian ecosystem and led these scientists to begin an experimental study of the effects of flooding on the Rio Grande bosque. Begun in 1991 at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge near Socorro, this research included three artificially created floods designed to mimic the historic flood pulse. A variety of ecological parameters were monitored before and after flooding. The results of the study indicated many benefits to flooding in this system and highlighted the need to restore flooding to riparian forests along the valley.