The graduate student I am working with is focusing on biogeochemistry and the cycles of nutrients in the pools, including dissolved oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorus. Keeping an eye on these chemical concentrations can give us a better idea of the quality of the habitat and how it is being affected by runoff from nearby human activity. That's my slapdash explanation before actually having seen any of these pools. I'll know much more soon.
As the ice is melting right about now, I will have to head off to Maine quickly after exams end. I'll be back in Saint Louis in mid-August.
This is my first experience on a biology project with national funding, so I'm very excited to start. In Orono, I will also be an hour from Acadia National Park. It will be a different kind of summer than I'm used to, but it should be very rewarding! I hope to keep some updates here throughout the summer.
Acadia's nice. Hike up Cadillac and watch the sun set. Gets kind of windy up there now and then, though.
ReplyDeleteSo what's the outsize effect of vernal pools?
Basically, these amphibian populations have very short life cycles and really depend on the pools to reproduce. So the diversity of life around the pools is very high, which makes them an obvious choice for conservation. Basically, the biology world is looking for ways to prioritize the way we conserve habitat, and areas like these pools and stream edges are one way to do that. They help maintain what are called metapopulations, which basically means gene flow and reproduction between mostly separated populations.
ReplyDeleteHope that made some sense.
Yah, it makes sense. I've read a few studies recently on ecological dis-integration beginning to occur in parts of the world as a result of GW. Species being driven up mountains in the search for the right temp zone. No exit. These vernal pools are probably high risk for dis-integration as more mobile species that are part of the summer ecology move elsewhere. If I recall correctly, that region should become slightly wetter over the next century.
ReplyDeleteYes, range expansions/contractions are a pretty well documented effect of climate change. The thing about climate change's effects on ecosystems is that human land use and activities not directly related to global warming are often also having big effects. In fact, the current view in the literature (this surprised me) is that the extinctions and ecological disintegration we see right now is more about habitat loss and disruption from human land use, and less about climate change directly. So the conservation triage right now is focused on reversing habitat losses and improving population corridors. Of course, climate change will likely start playing a bigger role before long, and the game now is predicting how it will change.
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