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Summertime in the BelgradesContentsfor Printing Article Summaries |
Vernal PoolsBy Mike Little Let me introduce you to one of our most neglected and misunderstood water bodies — the vernal pool. These are those (usually) small ponds that fill up with snowmelt or late winter rains but are dry by mid-August. Because they dry up, they do not support populations of fish. So what good are they? These puddles (or as one researcher calls them "Wicked Big Puddles") are the breeding centers for wood frogs, spotted salamanders, and fairy shrimp. The frogs and salamanders come in the hundreds just after ice-out — sometimes traveling over the snow — to mate and lay their eggs in these pools. They then return to the woods and wetlands to provide an important link in the food web of the northern forest. The fairy shrimp hatch, breed, and die in the spring and early summer, leaving their eggs to overwinter. If you are walking in the woods in April and hear what you think is a chorus of ducks quacking among the trees, you are probably hearing wood frogs in their breeding congregation. Sneak up on them and wait quietly, and they should surface and start to call. The vernal pool salamanders are silent — spotted salamanders and blue-spotted salamanders make no noise as they gather and mate. After the eggs are laid, the race is on! Will the young, gill-breathing larvae develop lungs fast enough before the pool dries up? The protection of these pools is vital to health of our forests. But more than just the water body needs to be protected. Like our lakes, we need to protect the shore land around these vernal pools — the adult salamanders and frogs live in the forest, not the pool. A protective buffer of 300 yards is not too much to ensure the continued existence of these fascinating creatures. Mike Little is executive director of the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance. He can be contacted at | ||