Are These Creatures in Your Spring Puddles? | Vernal Pools
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- Опубліковано 24 тра 2023
- You know those temporary pools of water that form after the snow melts in the spring? It turns out they're way more interesting and important than I truly would have ever guessed.
Michigan Vernal Pools Partnership: vppartnership.iescentral.com/
Special thanks to Sam Kurkowski, Dr. Rod Chimner, and Zoie Schafer for all of their time and insight! Y'all are awesome.
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#ecology #biology
I grew up outside Owosso, MI in the 1950’s and I spent hours wandering the edges of such a wetland. I would gather my specimens and look under my “junior chemist” microscope to see many of these creatures. Thanks for the memories.
Aw, that sounds so wonderful. Thank you for sharing!
Something that Sam said really stuck with me. When she said “Like, small and maybe nondescript doesn’t mean it’s not important” it made me think of how interconnected all ecosystems are. And how just because something isn’t as big as an elephant doesn’t mean it’s not filling an important ecological niche. Like, I never would have thought of how organisms can spread nutrients out in a forest from vernal pools!
Fantastic video! I learned so much! And it was so cool hearing from Sam, Zoie and Dr. Chimner. Something about listening to experts on a topic is just so much fun!
Yes! I always appreciate hearing your responses to videos. 🙂 But I also really enjoyed that clip. When I think of forests and wetlands, I don't often think about the tiny things or how important they might be, so that also stuck with me.
Alexis, you are a GEM and light in this world of 2023. Thank you for sharing your positivity!
There are vernal pools in central Indiana. They were fed by late winter rains (large forest depressions with clay soil). The ones I was familiar with had wood ducks, fairy shrimp, and tadpoles. The local salamanders also could be found looking for mates. The amazing sounds of the frogs were intensely stereophonic. :)
I concur 😋
Grew up in Covington Michigan playing in vernal pools, calling it "forest soup". Knew they were something special but didn't learn their significance until today, thank you!
I first learned about vernal pools when we bought our new house and one “sprung up” about 50 feet from our back porch about a week after closing.
Take good care of it please.
Our cottage is in an area of north-central Ontario where beavers dam up streams to form small ponds. As all the streams eventually flow into larger lakes, it's likely that these ponds don't technically meet the qualification of a vernal pool, and there could be fish in them. However, I imagine such ponds also have a significant impact on the biodiversity of the area.
There have been projects in many semi-arid regions where beavers were introduced to streams that were becoming dried out and lacking biodiversity. Within a few years after pairs of beavers were introduced there were multiple ponds along the stream that retained much of the spring run-off, and helped to irrigate and fertilize the banks of the streams for a wide area well beyond the banks. The impact of re-introducing the beavers had was huge on restoring the biodiversity to the stream and the surrounding area.
I love your videos!
I learned a lot from this video. Grew up in creeks with salamanders & crawdads. Steelhead pools. Since the years of drought in California the frogs that used to be super noisy every summer have sadly almost disappeared. So much life is connected to rainwater & snow melt amounts. Thanks for showing the small but majical worlds within the world 🌎
This was an amazing, eye-opening video! I have a few Vernal Pools right by where I live, next to a local resevoir. I too had zero idea of the level of bio diversity in such places!! SO cool! It really does make you realise that every inch of our planet is absolutely _covered_ in life, of varying sizes but all equally important to the general ecosystem around us. We really do live on an absolutely stunning planet and are _SO_ lucky we have our gorgeous green-blue ball to float around space on. Especially when you look at most other planets that have single biomes that aren't exactly welcoming to life of any kind. How did we get SO lucky?! 🥰😊
Who would have thought that a big mud puddle could be interesting. Thanks
'I study Sea Monkeys and their Kingdoms.'
What a great job that'd be.
Huh, this was super interesting. As a Yooper UA-cam Channel we couldn't stop watching this! Would love to colab some time. We teach wilderness survival and homestead management.
Where I live in Northern Michigan, every spring the frogs come to life. We call them "chirpers and croakers" for the sound they make. By early June the water is dried up and all is quiet. Love the sound of spring! I live on the edge of a cedar swamp mixed with poplar.
My brother has a vernal swamp on his land. In the spring the spring peepers are deafening.
Being near the north end of Burt Lake the University of Michigan Biological Station (aka the Bug Camp to the locals) is always sending people there to study it.
Love your videos. Keep making the good content.
Great video Alexis! I enjoy several nice vernal pools around my wooded home, which keeps my yard filled with toads and frogs. I haven't looked closely, but I have seen daphnia water fleas swimming about. I'm amazed when people spend their time indoors with virtual reality when "actual reality" is so much more interesting. Keep up the great work!
I grew up in and near Washtenaw County-- I had never heard of a 'Vernal pool' until your excellent video! like you, I had walked past (and in) a million pools, and I always thought of them as just another Michigan cold water Cedar swamp. I'm guessing that they are every three feet in the UP, especially as there has been little development and hopefully (!) no water draining projects. Thank you again for another fabulous video!
Thanks, Michael! I'm glad you enjoyed it and got to learn something new.
We have a new vernal pool lookout @ Sheridan park in Coopersville mi. Thanks, Girl Scouts !!
You literally can make anything fascinating. Who knew that Vernal Pools could captivate my undivided attention for almost half an hour! You’re absolutely awesome Alexis. Thanks for sharing your insight, knowledge and adventures with us- I learn so much from you it’s amazing! Thank you!
As someone who was fascinated by sea monkeys as a kid, I’m amazed to find out we have our own similar species native to MI! Very cool video Alexis!
the fairy shrimp looked REALLY pretty! like fluttering red-orange feathers and they're kinda magic - literal fairies! i could imagine a video just about them in particular.
The fairy shrimp resemble tiny versions of the Cambrian radiodonts. Neat little critters either way!
thanks for posting this vid. My friend have been checking out vernal pools around Edward Hines Park which is one of the main drainage areas for the Metro Detroit area and has many vernal pools from flooding and melting snow every Spring. Same with the trails that runs around Matthaei Botannical Gardens in east Ann Arbor (Dixboro area). Worth checking out!
Thx, I grow up in NW Detroit and know Hines Park very well !
When I was a kid I found fairy shrimp in a spring fed vernal pond near Moscow Michigan (Hillsdale county) that were living under about an inch of ice.
There's no way to think that something is interesting if you don't know that it exists. Thanks for the cool video. Again.
Wonderful video! I have a strange desire to toss around the fairy shrimp collector thingy with friends at an outdoor music festival. :)
The vernal pools in California are spectacular with flowers!
Your channel is so unique, your content is so interesting, and you're so cool! Keep up the great work, Alexis!!!
Thanks, Toby! I really appreciate that!
My wife was watching this video with our daughter and she mentioned that she was waiting for you to explain the origin of the name “vernal pool”. I asked why and she looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Apparently vernal has Latin roots, and means of or relating to spring. Which, yeah now that I think about it, vernal equinox… that’s a name I’ve heard before, but the whole thing somehow flew right over my head. At any rate, great video and thanks for taking the time to look into the day to day wonders of the world that surround us.
I love your 'w-waaaa-aat' at the suggestion that the spring peepers could be loud enough to hurt your ears. I agree, how could such a beautiful sound be too much. O_O
disclaimer 1 -- I LOVE SPRING PEEPERS!
disclaimer 2 -- I live next to a swamp full of em. I can hear them inside, with windows closed, with 2 air circulation fans on, the furnace on, and sitting between 2 computers and all their fans. =)
You can tell I didn't grow up near a pond!
@@AlexisDahl I just posted on my channel a recording of the spring peepers in my swamp a week ago. I've been waiting to do this since you posted this video. =)
When I was a kid we had this camp ground in Oregon we liked going to. The fishing was really good and there was a spring fed pool that drained into the river. The pool was quite a bit higher than the river so fish in the river could not get up into the pool, so the pool had no fish, but it did have a lot of salamanders who really liked us to clean the fish in there, because we would throw the fish gut into the pool and the salamanders would eat them up.
The salamanders were very cool with their gills like a lion's mane.
Hi Alexis! I hope you’re doing well! This reminds me of the first (and only) time I was hanging out near a small lake in south-western Michigan, and as I looked closer I realized it was full of tiny, quarter-sized, freshwater jellyfish! I didn’t know such a thing even existed. Where did they come from? Why did I never see them before? It was pretty memorable.
I think fate is trying to tell me something, ha ha. I just finished reading an email from someone who mentioned freshwater jellies in Michigan, to which my reaction was "Freshwater WHAT?!" So... I will absolutely look into this. 🙂
@@AlexisDahl I thought I'd stepped into a parallel universe for a moment. I'd love to learn more about them!
You just taught me so much! Areas on my own Family property in mid Michigan to make sure I protect and explore in spring… thank you
Out here in the deserts of California, we have all kinds of vernal pools. Now when I walk by one, I know that I can look for indicator species (which are probably different out here). And the fairy shrimp were so cool.
Thank you for a very cool video! I grew up in rural West Michigan, where these kinds of habitats are unfortunately timed to liven up just when we had to be indoors finishing final projects and studying for exams. There were spots on our farm with salamanders and cool little tree frogs, so now I'm wishing I could go back and look more closely for these other creatures!
Born and raised in Michigan. I've seen those more times than I can remember. A Hazzard of riding dirt bikes. It can get soft before you know it. Good times. Love Michigan.
I really wanted to say thank you for this video and many other too. I have learned a lot about Michigan from another perspective. I live in Southwestern Michigan. Now I’m curious about dunes, vernal pools and micro climate around southern Lake Michigan. Maybe I’ll find a park ranger who know something.
Hi guys around here in central WI we have fairy shrimp in most of the trout streams, besides various pools.
Very educational thanks…and while I was writing this on my local news they had a small news piece about the Supreme Court getting involved to further protect our smaller wetlands 👍….I will no longer think of these as swamps
Except the Supreme Court just weakened the CWA allowing almost no oversight for polluting or filling in of wetlands. Apparently, the majority of "justices" don't believe wetlands are important.
Vernal pools were a big controversy in my town in Connecticut. There was a proposal to protect them but many people thought the term vernal pool was hippie nonsense. If they saw your video maybe they would understand.
What a bucnh of cool people you got to learn from! Fantastic video!
I’m from Hawaii and I love your videos. Thank you for sharing all of these wonderful stories about your region. It’s inspiring to me.
Thank YOU! It means a lot that you enjoy them!
Eeee!!! Thank you for this spotlight on Vernal Pools! I studied them in Grad School, and love seeing others enjoy them too!! 🎉🎉
Oh, my gosh, amazing!! You have such a cool field!
Thanks!!
I live in the desert and enjoy the same pleasure. triops, fairy shrimp, tadpoles!
The fairy shrimp I see are far larger. Bright orange tails. Beautiful to watch for sure.
Zoe is my ideal lady! What a gem!!!!
I used to volunteer at a wildlife area along the Sacramento River In California. During one of our spring training sessions, we were granted access to an area whose vernal pools with restricted access. I was stunned by the beauty of these pools, surrounded by clouds of flowers and shimmering in the gentle breezes. Thank you for a beautiful reminder of these natural anomalies.
We were always able to find the blue salamanders near under our lawn's rock gardens when my family all lived in Oakland County. We didn't have many vernal pools that I was aware of, but we did have a pond fairly close by.
i live in oakland county!
Thanks for the video! Never heard of fairy shrimp or that there was a name for the standing pools of water.
What a fascinating video! Now I have to find some vernal pools here in south Louisiana.
Now I want to take a frisbee with me next time I'm in the woods 😆
Wow, was just thinking how the Ancients who built these Megolithic Civilization's (like Sage Wall, in Montana); used Spring or rain water to create their own vernal pools; where turtles, & frogs were farmed in. Amazing how exciting these little aspects of God's precious Dominion can become. Thanks,🫶🐢🪲🐞🦂🧊🏞
Love your videos and enthusiasm!
Great episode! I never knew this. Are you ever planning a trip down Iron Mountain way to visit the Pine Mountain ski jump and the Cornish Pump?
Vernal pools are fascinating, but probably tragically underappreciated. I have seen them fall to development time and again. Most recently, the outbreak of roundabout construction has destroyed several in my area (Washtenaw/Oakland). I learned about vernal pools from reading a description, from the 60s I think, of a particular intersection in the area. It noted that the plot of land on a certain corner contained a vernal pool. Well, now that plot contains one-quarter of a roundabout.
Here is a video for you to do, Millie Hill Mine. Its a bat cave up in the UP. With the millions of bats dying each year from White Nose Sydrome it would be good to get them on video before they are gone.
What a great suggestion!
Bats are in a perilous position, just like the amphibians featured here.
Another suggestion might be the Portage Canal bridge. It's history and future (since it's in the midst of rehabilitation)
Alexis seems keen on the infrastructure of copper country there in the UP
The first time i saw them i saw hooked on vernal pools, and ditches.
Awesome video, Thanks you make learning fun!!
Excellent video as always Alexis! I Can’t wait for the next one!🦊😆
More than just facts and fun presentations, you're causing me to start questioning darned near everything around me. Thanks for that.
So enjoy your channel, Alexis. I always learn so much.
Thank you very much for your work and passion for inquiry into the workings of the world.
love your channel! especially with the michigan history as a detroit native. you remind me a lot of Tom Scott!
Your videos never disappoint!
I love your videos, I cant wait to see what awesome topic you cover next
you have taught me a ton of interesting things about the state I was born in and didn't know
Love your channel. Thanks for the upload.
Depressions on Stone Mountain in Georgia host fairy shrimp. Quite a different habitat.
I enjoyed that a lot. Thank you!
Alexis: A very interesting video on vernal pools and fairy shrimp. But I was disappointed. 😞You never gave us a recipe on how to prepare U.P. Michigan fairy shrimp cocktail hors d'oeuvres.🙂🙂🙂
I'm up in the Sault (Canadian side) and although there are some pretty stark differences between the UP and my part of Northern Ontario, it's still close enough to home that I know a lot of the places. I love your content, Alexis, keep on keepin' on!
Alexis, thanks for the interesting video. I kept waiting for you to ask 'What do the fairy shrimp eat and what eats them?'
Thank you, that's so cool!
Love your videos! Have you ever heard of the huron mountains/ huron mountain club? I would love to see a video about the dolmen on the mountain within their property.
Thank you so much! And I have heard of the Huron Mountain Club! From my understanding, they are also extremely limited in who they let onto that property, so I'd likely have a hard time capturing any sort of useful footage. Maybe someday, though!
Wow, that was really interesting. Thanks for that education.
I had never even heard the term "Vernal pool" until this video! I wonder if there is much difference between vernal pools and a regular wetland/swamp area? Does the swamp contain the same indicator species?
Interesting video as always! Thanks for posting it!
Thanks, Marc! 🙂 My understanding is that the temporary-ness of vernal pools is a key detail (along with the lack of fish), and is one thing distinguishing them from swamps or wetlands in general.
I'm unsure if there are much of vernal pools out here in the San Rafael Swell, but there are temporary ones that likely last for weeks and lets tadpoles thrive. This was awesome to learn about and it make me more aware about the forests and ecosystem around me. You make awesome videos and make me look forward to having rest days instead of hiking for a few hours. I can only hope you keep on making more, thank you
Thank you, Rudy! I really appreciate you saying that.
Thank you for the video.
Great content! Thank you :)
Thanks, Alexis 😋
So cool!!! Again!!!
Rather interesting video. It makes me wonder if the pools in my woods are vernal pools. Some years they dry up completely and other years they retain some water all year.
Eye opening.
That was cool. Thanks
Thanks Alexis! Always thoroghly enjoy your videos and I think you've inspire me to do a circuit of Lake Superior (okay, perhaps your inspirtation won't allow me to get past the upper penninsula!). The bizarre things I notice: Sam in her puffy jacket and Zoe in a t-shirt......
Thanks, Jim! 🙂 Also, ha ha, yeah... that's April weather in the UP for you! It was a brisk day.
Love the information.
I keyed in on one of the things that Dr. Rod Chimner said. At the 18:24 mark, He said that the prediction for the region is for it to get more precipitation due to climate change. How climate change will affect the Great Lakes region is something that I am very interested in learning.
I grew up in Marquette County and I am always interested in anything to do with the U.P. and the northern great lakes region.
after hearing your reminder for folks to keep the place clean, it hit me that amphibians are particularly sensitive to chemicals and pollutants in their environment... perhaps a firmer warning with details from the researchers may have been good? like i can imagine something seemingly small, like dropping a hotdog wrapper, could likely harm the tadpoles already... it'd be good to have some real examples of human stuff that could really upset the delicate balance of such temporary and vulnerable ecologies from the researchers.
another thing i started wondering about is... are there artificial vernal pools? either intentionally made ones, where some researcher digs a shallow depression and seeds it with certain species (or ensures they can turn up), or unintentionally made ones, like maybe some abandoned structures or construction sites? i could imagine certain abandoned urban areas being able to generate pools that last for weeks to months at a time... and they might contain completely different species?
speaking of species... what about the microbial species? do they differ from the rest of the wetlands/forests? i'm reminded of this channel Life in Jars, where the dude just goes to pick out random samples from a pond and keeps them in airtight jars to observe life in a microclimate... it's kinda amazing. perhaps the smallest species may turn out to have some outsized impact on these ecologies?
Very cool.
I have always called them Pollywog ponds.
Stumbled across your great channel. Have you thought about doing a doc. on mushroom hunting in Michigan?
Being in Florida, I'm adjusted to swamps. When I see water in woods, I expect cypress trees...
Northwest Ohio has vernal pools along the north branch river in wood county
What a fascinating episode. My one question is, how does an El Niño-type year like this year (2024) affect vernal pools and their species? And I’m glad you asked about global warming-induced climate change. Good question!
That's a great question! I imagine it might depend on the area and how much spring rain happens, but I'd also be curious to see what surveys are like this year.
Fascinating content.....eyes wide open 👀
I have a pond in my backyard in Oklahoma. It has frogs, turtles, salamanders and small fish. If you want to explore it I will tell you everything I know about it. Oh wait, I just did. Thanks for telling me about vernal pools.
Now I'm wondering if there is more than just frogs and mosquito larvae in the standing water in my backyard... where did i put that white promotional Frisbee
happen all over by the cabin southeast of kalkaska
So that's what those little things are called
Moose Flats is a vernal pool. An internet myth claims that there is a Moose boulder poking out of Moose Flats' vernal pool. Moose Flats is on Ryan Island. Ryan Island is in Siskiwit Lake. Siskiwit Lake is on Isle Royale, and Isle Royale is on Lake Superior. The internet claim is that Moose boulder is the largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island in a lake 🤪
I wonder how the new absence of White Ash is going to affect this ecosysem.
Very interesting
Bugs? What about the mosquitos and the flies? My god, those bloodthirsty flies!
Interesting video
Did I miss any mention of these pools and snakes? I would think a place frogs are born would be a big source for them.