4/23/19: The Vernal Pond

Vernal Pool Ecosystem Week 3, Tuesday Lab Section

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In arriving to the farm, I think we were all a bit worried about the previous day's rain, and its effects on our ecosystems. Walking out to our BioCube, we were met with the same overflowing stream and subsequent trudging through water that had caught us off guard last week. However, any problems the rain had brought were, in my opinion, offset by the increased greenery and vegetation that graced us on our walk out. The trees were in their flowering states, the bird were singing, and the warm weather really culminated to a lovely morning.

When we came to our BioCube's site, to our surprise, the water level in the vernal pond actually seemed to go down. While probably just a product of the warmer weather, I was briefly worried on its effect on our ecosystem. However, it ended up being the most interesting day we had there. We began with our moment of silence, which was dominated by a diverse chorus of bird calls. It was the first day I was able to actually get some recordings of birds due to a reduction in wind and increased birds calling. The lack of wind made the moment of silence a lot more serene, as the creaking of trees and rustling of grasses was minimal. The time really drifted by quickly,for me at least, listening to bird calls in the warm weather and just enjoying being in the fresh air.

After our moment of silence, we dove into the BioCube. It was the first time in our three weeks that our vernal pond's waters had signs of life. Spiders and other insects drifted on top of the water, and further examination of a water sample revealed mosquito larvae swimming around the water. Examining the surrounding vegetation, many of the smaller woody plants were budding, and we found some smaller flowering plants not present last week. Inspection of the grasses revealed large wolf spiders patrolling the grasses which were quite interesting, as well as some smaller insects I wasn't able to identify immediately. I did, however, discover a tick on my leg after making my way through some of the grasses, which provided an interesting specimen for observation, as well as prompting an aggressive tick check at home.

Then, a loud splash silenced our group. No one was near the pool who would have caused the splash, so immediately I thought "FROG". As a bit of backstory, on hearing I was part of the vernal pond group, I was excited to observe amphibians. However, the first two excursions had resulted in no amphibians in our area, with the swamp and coniferous groups finding the only amphibians. So I was understandably intrigued by the prospect of a larger organism in our ecosystem. This prompted a search of our pond and the surrounding area, and after a few minutes, there it was. A large frog resting on submerged grass in one of the surrounding ponds. To be quite honest, my first thought was disbelief, as it seemed to good to be true for the frog to just be sitting out in the open. After a few seconds passed, my disbelief passed and an instinct to go grab it kicked in. Unfortunately, my lack of a net and incredibly un-stealthy muck boots did not grant me the element of surprise and the frog slipped under the water.

This sparked the Great Frog Hunt of 4/23, in which the group took about 20 minutes just scouring the banks of our pond and the surrounding banks, with nets and hands at the ready. Unfortunately, this expedition yielded no frogs, but our group's noise probably alerted them to remain in hiding.

Although we caught no frogs, we found plenty of biodiversity within our ecosystem for further examination in the lab, bringing our field work to a gracious end.

- By Jacob