Plant Inventory (partial)

Animal Inventory

Map of Lake Louise Field StationLake Louise Field Station (LLFS) is a 14 acre "blackwater" lake located approximately 7 miles south of Valdosta in south-central Georgia. The lake and surrounding 170-acre property are owned and maintained by Valdosta State University as an outdoor laboratory where students and faculty from the Geosciences and Biology study soil science, hydrology, biogeography, microbiology, botany, and entomology. Opportunities exist for studies in upland, swamp, or lacustrine environments. LLFS is undeveloped except for one dirt road leading through the property, several fire break lines, a small open air pavilion, and a 100 meter boardwalk leading to a dock on the lake.  

Within the confines of the property there exists the following:

  • A 14 acre blackwater sinkhole lake that feeds into the Florida Aquifer.  A small creek feeds into the northwest corner of the lake, and another small creek drains the lake at its southern end.  Sometime about 1993-94 beavers moved into the creek at the southern end of the lake and established a series of dams.  As a result of these dams, the water level of the lake has risen approximately 0.3 meters and vastly increased the wetlands that exist around the lake, especially to the east and south.

  • A mixed stand of hardwoods and pines borders the western edge of the property, which is delineated by a sandy ridge, approximately 8-10 meter in elevation above the lake.  I-75 rests atop this ridge.  At the southern edge of the property within the ridge there is a large barrow pit that was most likely used to supply gravel and sand for the construction of Interstate 75.

  • North of the lake there is a stand of pines, mostly slash and a few longleaf, that has remained undisturbed for the past 40 years.  Prior to that time, this area was occasionally logged.  This area has been subjected to controlled burns over the past 30 years.  Until recently, the burns were sporadic; but now the Georgia Forestry Commission has agreed to conduct regular scheduled burns at the field station.  A colony of Gopherus polyphemus, the gopher tortoise, which is on the state threatened species list .

  • East of the lake lies a deciduous woodlands/wetlands.  This area possessed some wetlands prior to 1993.  However, since the beavers have built dams on the southern end of the lake, the wetlands have expanded considerably and now occupy much of the area.  This area represents the densest vegetation growth on the property and contains numerous pools and bog areas.  

  • Building, Equipment and Maintenance—except for one 70 square meter open-air pavilion located in the pineland area north of the lake and the boardwalk, no other structures currently exist on the property.  There is no equipment specific to the property.  In the fall of 1997, a 100 meter boardwalk and dock was built through the wetlands on the north edge of the lake to the lake’s edge.  This boardwalk replaced a boardwalk that had become submerged when the lake level rose due to the activity of the beavers.  Periodically the Physical Plant performs such activities as bush-hogging the dirt road and a path leading to the boardwalk to keep them free of weeds and removes fallen trees from the dirt road.