The End of Week 3

Today was an indoor day (although it was hotter inside!). Our group had no need to go into the field. Yesterday we gathered data from 3 vegetation plots, found the coordinates of the 19 points used to map the boundary so today's activities sadly turned to compilation and lesson planning. One of the questions we had when we left our site on Wednesday was when and if the moose would return? We are happy to report that all of our human activity and impact at the vernal pool didn't deter the moose from returning to the well traveled path he/she had cut through the pool. New tracks were spotted today by another group and they brought back the proof in pictures.

All our hard work outdoors is paying off! We have a lot of great data that we will transform into one cohesive presentation and binder. We are excited for our lesson plan, even if it took a few tries to make it right, because we will be outdoors and exploring our area!

This weekend Rick will be heading to Vermont for a beerfest, and of course his pedagogy. Tessa will be the best mother ever and Sunday she will be working as an apprentice docent on an Isle of Shoars tour boat! If you have time check it out! Mary is going to hangout with the green head flies at Plum Island. And Yvonna will be heading south to Cape Cod and probably partake in some fishing.

Although we are all going are separate ways we will be working on our parts of our project.
The question is for the weekend what will this all look like Monday?
Have a nice weekend...

The Picture Blog

Although we stared at the ground (that is where the pools were!) we did get to see some other nature scenes! These are the pictures. Enjoy!

This moose track indicated we did indeed have a visitor every morning! And this was his morning route...

And he left us a nice present too!When we took our eyes away from the ground we saw some of these:

A scarred tree

Pitch Pine

A rainy New England Forest day...mosquito's included:

Pretty fungus (oxymoron?)

The inhabitants...

We Vegged.

Our trip to LaVerne and Shirley today was exciting and different from ususal. We did spend some time looking in the pools and taking measurments (the water was very low), but we saw our very first and only salamander (A Red Back). After the ususal we moved on to evaluating some vegetative plots.
Plot one was an area close to LaVerne and Shirley. Our evaluation proved that we were infact in a wetland area. We found and identified Red Maple, Common High Bush Blueberry, Winterberry Holly, Sheep Laurel, and Sphagnum Moss, as the dominent plant species.
Plot two (which we also assumed was wetland) was not quite the same species as plot one. We were lucky and did infact have just enough species to qualify as wet lands, but just by the hairs of our chinny chin chins. The species there included: Hemlock, Red Maple, Red Oak, Pitch Pine, Black Huckleberry, and similar shrubs to the wetlands. We also saw a bunch of sphagnum moss and other moss that we were unable to identify.
Plot three was an area we believed would prove to be an upland area, which did indeed turn out to be the case. the case. It was dominated by Hemlock, Red Maple, bracken ferns, wintergreen, and both high and low bush blueberry.
So... we are celebrating! Our vegetation plots verified our hypotheseis about where the vernal pool wetland area lies, where its boundaries are, and where the uplands begin. This feels very good. Take a look........

Backswimmers are our friends

Tamposi Land, July 24, 2007, partly sunny

Today was a day well spent at the vernal pool. The water level and perimeter of each little pool declined significantly. This will be our last day doing observations of the water and aquatic life. We are starting to make too much of an impact on these fragile bodies of water. Very interesting observations today. The front pool, Laverne was loaded with Isopods and Backswimmers. In our tray of scooped water, we saw Backswimmers capture and eat the Isopods. We also saw Water Boatman, Water Scorpions and Phantom Midges. In the back pool, Shirley, it was quite different. There were no Isopods in the water we scooped and observed. We did discover that Backswimmers eat live mosquitoes that land on the water. There are a lot of Backswimmers in each of these little pools and they must eat many emerging mosquitoes in the early spring. Backswimmers are our friends.

Backswimmer:



Mary and Rick Checking out our little ecosystem:
Water Scorpion:






Question of the day?????
Does the composition of the floor of the Vernal Pool i.e.- leaf litter type, soil type, plant life- effect which organisms will inhabit that part of the Vernal Pool?

We Are Group Vernal!

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Group Vernal is Yvonna, Tessa, Mary, and Rick...



And these are our babies:


LAVERNE
AND
SHIRLEY
Our ultimate questions are: How do you define a vernal pool? How are these ecosystems ecologically important?

What is a vernal pool and are we actually studying a vernal pool?

Vernal pool-Vernal pools, also called ephemeral pools, are temporary pools of water. They are devoid of fish, and thus allow the safe development of natal amphibian and insect species.

Day one out on the Tamposi we looked for the signs that what we were studying was in fact a vernal pool. First, we found that the area was isolated with no water source flowing in or out of the pool. Two, there were no populations of fish present in the remaining water of the pool. And three, the species that were present, such as green frogs, helped us determine this was what we were hoping for!

This pool is interesting because most vernal pools are dried up by this time of year. We are very lucky to have any water! Laverne and Shirley are the two areas where water remains but literally a week earlier they were connected. She is draining fast!

Stay tuned for more...