Vernal Pools at the Watershed Center

Vernal pools are formed by water accumulation is small depressions. The base is usually made up of bedrock. They have no streams for drainage of water, but the water does slowly seep out/evaporate out of the pool. They are breeding grounds for salamanders and frogs because of the lack of fish. Most of the time they are four foot deep or less, depending on the season and climate. They are also are hard to find after they dry up, but some ways to find them is to look for a lack of vegetation , different soil than the surrounding forest, and there are water stains. The animals in it evolved to have a temporary wetland. There are also insects that use Vernal Pools to live in such as Fairy Shrimp and Fingernail Clams for their whole life. Although most are small (one-tenth to one-quarter of an acre), they can be up to one acre in size. Most are shallow (6" to knee-deep), while some can be 4 feet deep. These are some facts about vernal pools.

The reason we need data collected is to find out if the ecosystems are healthy at the Watershed Center. One way to know that an ecosystem is healthy is when there is biodiversity. The first way biodiversity is important is that there can be a habitat for every organism in the ecosystem. Another reason is that there needs to be ways to keep each species at bay so there is not over-population, if a species builds up too many numbers they can drive out a lot of other organisms in that area. If a species starts to die or die off in one ecosystem, that may lead to the whole ecosystem failing to survive or even just one species will start to become extinct or endangered. One example of this is the Gray Wolf in Yellowstone. They were hunted in the 1900s to near extinction, because of this the elk and deer population skyrocketed. When the deer & elk numbers increased the aspen trees started to disappear due to the fact that the deer are eating the bark. As you can see if one animal is affected in one way or another the whole ecosystem can suffer.

Sources: Wetland,Woodland,Wildland

By- Elizabeth H. Thompson
and Eric R. Sorenson

A Field Guide to the animals of Vernal Pools by- Leo p. Kenny and Matthew R. Burne

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