Happy World Wetlands Day!

It's World Wetlands Day! YAY! What does that mean? It means we appreciate wetlands for the day, even if we aren't normally in the habit of thinking about them. Some of us happen to be thinking about wetlands all the time because we happen to study plants that live in wetlands. But others may say, why do I care about these places that I never want to go in because they are wet, muddy and full of mosquitoes? You might care about these places because they are nursery habitat for the fish, crabs and shrimp that you like to eat. You might care about these places because you are worried about climate change and wetlands store (literally) tons of carbon, both aboveground and belowground. You also might care about wetlands because you like bird watching and you can see storks, egrets, herons, coots, ducks and roseate spoonbills, among others, in wetlands.

Wetlands come in many shapes and sizes. Wetlands can be marshes, mangroves, fens, bogs and pannes. They can be wet from freshwater or saltwater. You probably have a wetland somewhere close to where you live. Love your wetlands!

Corn snake

Look what surprised us in the mangroves yesterday!

Job hazards

Yesterday as we were walking out through the mangrove forest, we came across this fine fellow sitting across our path:

I happen to be terrified of crocodiles. How do crocodiles compare to your job hazards?

Things stay the same

Today I visited a site that I first visited two years ago. It is at least an hour and a half boat ride from the field station (which is a lot of traveling to get to by itself), so I don't go to that site very often. I was comparing pictures from two years ago to what I saw today, and it basically looks the same. It's not often that you get to say that about something...people change, trees get cut down, houses get painted, things change. But sometimes they stay the same!

Caterpillars

First of all, I had a caterpillar today INSIDE my apartment. It basically devoured my entire mint plant! Considering that I have screens on the windows, how the heck did it get in? Maybe it came in as an egg on a leaf, or crawled in when it was really small. I was shocked that it had escaped my attention until now, because it was more than an inch long and bright green.

Speaking of caterpillars, word on the street (well in the forest actually) is that mangrove skippers (a type of butterfly caterpillar found in mangroves) are eating the seedlings I planted in Panama a few months ago! This is interesting because no one has ever known this type of caterpillar to eat this particular species, AND it means I might have some differential survival between the places I planted seedlings. And that means I'll have results. Yay!

Tree frog friend!

This little guy is a red-toed tree frog, sitting on a leaf of a Pelliciera rhizophorae seedling. We don't usually see a lot of frogs in the mangrove swamps, but this is at least the second one I've blogged about!Isn't it cute?

Ecology arts and crafts

As an ecologist, the equipment I use is not very high-tech. In fact, most of the tools I use in the field are regular everyday objects I adopt to serve some other purpose. When I was trying to capture mouse tracks on sand dunes, I made track plates using those disposable foil baking sheets with printer toner sprinkled on them...the mice (and other animals) walk across it and leave their little pawprints! Currently I am devising a cage of sorts to keep crabs from eating mangrove propagules that I will be planting...I started cutting up heavy duty plastic mesh but then realized that the quantity I need will weigh 100 pounds and I simply can't take that much mesh to Panama. I thought back to protecting lupine seeds from those hungry mice...bridal veil to the rescue! Bridal veil, or tuile, can be purchased cheaply at any fabric store and is lightweight and allows light to pass through. And, it can be punctured with barbecue skewers to make a semi-sturdy little plant protector. Here it is, with a small basil plant serving as my model:


Let's hope this keeps the crabs from eating my mangrove propagules! There are some voracious crabs in the mangrove forests.

Reading recommendations

The trees are fruiting, so I'm heading to Panama next week. In preparation, I re-read two of my favorite books today to my almost-five-year old cousin: The Great Kapok Tree and The Sea, the Storm, and the Mangrove Tangle. Both of these are by Lynne Cherry, with excellent illustrations and good environmental lessons. The first book takes place in the Brazilian rainforest, and features all the rainforest animals begging a sleeping logger to leave their rainforest trees standing. This was one of my favorite books as a child. I love the lush vegetation and rare animals depicted. The mangrove book shows the ecosystem that forms as one small mangrove seedling grows bigger and bigger. One of the prime threats to mangroves, shrimp farming, is mentioned but the book focuses on the resilience of these ecosystems to disturbance and shows how many different organisms depend on them.

Mangroves as carbon sinks

A new reason to care about mangroves: they are extremely important capturers of carbon. Cutting down mangroves for ports, aquaculture and coastal development releases carbon stored in mangroves, adding to our greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper published online yesterday, Donato et al. provide a much-needed analysis of the role mangroves play in carbon storage. They find that mangroves from the Indo-West Pacific hold a large amount of carbon, not only in their large tree trunks and branches, but underground in their extensive root systems. Carbon stored in the sediment of mangrove forests was found to be on average five times the amount of carbon storage in other forests (tropical, temperate and boreal). The authors find that of all the carbon released annually due to deforestation, 10% may come from mangroves despite the fact that mangroves comprise less than 1% of tropical forests.

Results!

I would like to share some results from my Florida experiment. Without going into all the nitty gritty details, I can show you some clear differences between my treatments. Check it out:
On the left, plants are growing tall and happy. On the right, plants are not as tall and not as happy. Plants on the left are in freshwater; on the right, very very salty water. These are only 2 of my 27 tubs, so there is a spectrum of heights and leafiness but this is a pretty nice visual!

Swamp allure

Why would anyone in their right mind want to spend time in a hot, humid, muddy, bug-infested swamp? This is a question many of my friends and admirers have asked. If you have spent time in mangroves, salt marshes, bogs or other swamp-like environments, it is possible you love them but more likely that you hope to never go back. However, you will be missing out if you never go back.
Allow me to explain.

Mangrove forests are unlike other tropical forests in that they are depauperate of plant diversity. In the Americas, a typical mangrove forest has one to three tree species and a smattering of other types of plants such as vines and epiphytes (plants that live on top of other plants, such as bromeliads that grow on tree trunks). Because there are only a few woody species, there tends to be little or no understory. This means you can walk into a mangrove forest and feel like you are in a cathedral, with the branches of trees reaching high above you and nothing obscuring the view for what feels like miles. This makes it difficult to find a suitable ladies' room sometimes,

If the cathedral view is not enough, these forests are full of wildlife that you would rarely see other places. Because you can see farther than in other types of forest, it is easier to see and hear birds, plus if coatis are running through the forest far away from you there is a better chance of seeing them. Parrots squawk high overhead, announcing themselves as they fly by. Toucans rest in tree branches. Hummingbirds and mangrove warblers flash their bright colors in surrounding trees, but you won't see the snakes until they're close. A couple very cool tree frogs (e.g. hourglass; see previous post) hang out on trunks or leaves.

Then there is the adventure aspect. You never know when you might sink into the mud up to your waist, so stuck that you have to take your boots off to get out. You may come across a nest of africanized honey bees and have to sneak away quickly and quietly. There might be a thunderstorm with lightning crashing above and rain pelting down. Or on a calmer day, there is always the creaking sound of dead trees swaying in the breeze, just waiting to fall down.
If you can ignore the heat, protect yourself against the bugs, and don't mind getting muddy, mangroves are very rewarding places to explore.

Nature documentary

Going out in boats is not always scary; in fact sometimes it is more like a nature documentary than a thriller. Here, we explore a river where the rare mangrove Pelliciera rhizophorae occurs.

Mangroves and Manatees

We went searching for mangroves, and we found manatees! The sign said "Do not molest the manatees." We made sure not to.