Nature Snippets

What sucks the juice out of many plants, leaves a sticky mess that promotes mold growth, and will lay its eggs ANYWHERE. The answer is the spotted lanternfly, a beautiful insect that hails from East Asia and is spreading from an introduction site near Allentown Pennsylvania. Although it is pretty, it can be destructive in its home away from home.

The episode art this week was uploaded by Wikimedia user WanderingMogwai and can be found here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spotted_lanternfly_displaying_underwing.jpg

Scuba divers pump compressed air into or out of jackets to hang neutrally buoyant in the water column. Few insects can manage the same feat and must hang onto to plants or expend energy swimming. But one insect can shunt oxygen in and out of an air bubble to "float" anywhere between the water surface and the pond floor. This same insect turns camouflage on it's head to adapt to its unusual back-stroke approach to swimming. Backswimmers do all of this and are also well equipped with a beak that can get your attention if you mishandle them.

The episode art is modified from Didier Descouens' stunning image found here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Notonecta_maculata_MHNT.jpg

A friend and radio broadcaster in my home town asked me to record something about the process of writing and publishing a book. I suspect that each book develops on a unique trajectory, and mine seems certainly to be unique. It's my first book and so I claim limited expertise on the topic. There were pitfalls, and one major one, but it was nothing I could have avoided. So this podcast is certainly not a how-to, but more of a how-I-did. And when you write your book, I'm sure it will be in a very different way than I did.

Episode art is Adelaide Murphy Tyrol's art on the book cover. The book is available for pre order here:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/turning-stones-discovering-the-life-of-water-declan-mccabe/20598149?ean=9781684751839

and also on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

We have dramatically changed our climate. It's easy to consider that the change is slight. After all, who can remember what our climate was like back in the 70s? Back when it was "normal"? But consider this, roughly 60% of the US population had not even been born until the 1980s. So, our childhood recollections of "normal" weather occurred when climate change was already well underway. Scientists call this phenomenon the "shifting baseline" - what we each consider baseline conditions is very different from what a pre-industrial baseline might look like. This episode examines long-term data sets to explore how climate has affected important parts of the New England culture like ice fishing, lilac flowering, and maple sugaring.

The episode art is from the Joe's Pond Association website. It shows a concrete block perched on a wooden pallet on the frozen pond. "When the ice breaks, the pallet will fall, and down will come cinder block".....unplugging a clock to establish the precise moment of ice out! Please pay them for their photograph by placing a bet on when the ice will go out in 2024: https://www.joespondvermont.com/ice-out-tickets.html

Ladybugs, Ladybirds, or Lady beetles are familiar to all in art and in reality. These little munchers of aphids and other garden insects are common in many habitats. If the supply of soft-bodied insects on your cabbages dwindles, the adults will fly off to other plants in your garden and elsewhere. Because lady beetles have been collected and sold for as biological control agents, species have been moved from place to place and even between continents. This episode covers such topics and also addresses efforts to document rare native species and even farm them for reintroduction into their former habitats.

Episode art is from iNaturalist contributor Bill Siebert. Bill is a retired biology teacher equipped with a 600mm and macro lens. For more information about his photograph, get a free iNaturalist account and look here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/171724937

In colder winters than we are currently experiencing in Vermont, small streams wear thick layers of ice. In the winter of 1997 I attempted to sample some streams year round. I was thwarted by ice so thick that a felling axe made little impression. But spring-fed streams with an endless supply of water at a constant temperature shrug off any ice that may form. These unique flowing-water habitats lack the minute bits of organic material that feed insects in other streams. And so many species simply cant live in springs, freeing up those habitats for spring water specialists found nowhere else.

The art for this episode is a photo of the Well of Dee, the source of Scotland's River Dee. The river emerges from the ground as a large spring in Cairngorms National Park and flows west to the North Sea at Aberdeen. The art is from Wikimedia Commons and full details are here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Well_of_Dee_-_Source_of_River_Dee_-_geograph.org.uk_-_229032.jpg

With snow on the ground, you might not expect to find many invertebrates about, but there are some exceptions. Long-jawed spiders are among the most common invertebrates found clamoring about for food on Vermont's snow crusts. They come in two common colors and my bias is that the green ones are spectacular. So, grab your phone and perhaps a clip-on macro lens to get up close and personal with these amazing creatures making a living by eating snow fleas.

The episode art this week is from Wikimedia Commons. Full details can be found here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tetragnatha_P1060796a.jpg

Calligraphy beetles have beautiful patterns that appear to be inked onto their elytra with a fine-tipped black pen. Their larvae specialize on particular plant species before dropping into the soil to pupate. I find them fascinating, and so when my daughters pointed out that my podcast lacked a proper logo, I suggested the willow calligrapha for inspiration. Lauren, my youngest is an artist and in short order she produced a new logo for the podcast. To see more of Lauren's art please visit her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauren.mcc.photography/ And to hear why some beetles in the genus Calligrapha support the matriarchy, give the episode a listen.

Episode art this week is a willow calligrapha beetle uploaded by user B. Schoenmakers to Wikimedia Commons. Full details here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Calligrapha_multipunctata_(Chrysomelidae)_-_(imago),_Jefferson_(NY),_United_States.jpg

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" - Shakespeare said it best. The subject of this week's episode has many names just in English, but whatever you choose to call them, they are important in processing leaves and decaying wood in the environment. Isopods are ubiquitous crustaceans that you doubtlessly have seen at home, in the woods, in a pond, or in weeds washed up on a beach somewhere. I dig a little into their biology here discuss a few of their very many names.

I also am excited to announce that my first book, "Turning Stones: Discovering the Life of Fresh Water" will be coming out in June. I'm excited to see this project come to life and I look forward to scheduling some book events. You can take a peek or pre-order a copy here on the Down East Books site: http://downeastbooks.com/books/9781684751846

This week's cover art is from Wikimedia user Dat doris and found here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kellerassel_001.jpg

If you have seen a freshly felled tree, you may well have noticed the rings in the cross section that mark the passage of the years. But felling trees just as an historical exercise seems extreme and so my students and I cored some trees on campus and nearby to explore succession, competition, and the deep history of organisms far older than ourselves. The pine trees we cored stood in what we now call "Colchester Vermont" when Thomas Edison's first viable light bulbs shed light on the world for about 14 hours before burning out. This podcast describes the process of tree coring and ways we can use this technique to test hypotheses.

Update 12/29/2023: episode art is from a bald cypress found here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tree_rings_in_Taxodium_distichum_wood_(bald_cypress)_4_(24518375307).jpg

Why do we fish and should we fish at all? When I fish, it is usually for recreation or education. I encourage others to fish because I believe that familiarity with the fascinating organisms in the natural world fosters appreciation for the environment. When a person catches a fish in a nondescript pond, dots are connected. A previously boring water body becomes a habitat. Certainly it was habitat before anyone caught a fish, but an appreciation for the pond as habitat is built. And when we appreciate organisms and habitats, we are more likely to value and protect that habitat.

In this episode, several St. Michael's College Environmental Science tell us why they fish and what they caught.

Update 12/29/2023: episode art is from Wikimedia Commons and found here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Lepomis_macrochirus_photo.jpg

I can't think of a better way to learn about the coastal biology of a country than to visit. And so we did! Thirteen Saint Michael's College students joined three professors and we crisscrossed the Dingle Peninsula for two weeks. We learned a lot of biology and also hiked to spectacular locations and even visited a pub or two. This episode gets into some of the cultural as well as biological details of our adventure.

In addition to flood impacts on humans there are human impacts on floods. And of course there are flood impacts on other organisms. Among other things, this impromptu episode will get into being safe around flood waters and the risks associated with flooded sewage plants.

An earlier version of this had some audio issues that have been improved.

Episode art is the Winooski River hydrograph downloaded from the USGS site

Imagine for a moment that a grey squirrel grabbed hold of your arm or even your tongue and refused to let go until you transported it to your home. That's roughly the experience that many bumble bees endure when accosted by certain beetle species. This episode describes the strange relationships between beetles and their involuntary Uber drivers. This will be the last episode of the current season...although I may record one or two from about 3,000 miles east of Vermont for summer release. In the mean time....have a great summer.

Episode art is from my cell phone and shows a beetle clamped onto a bumble bee antenna,

Biodiversity loss is not just a crisis in Borneo or some other tropical spot, it is happening in all localities. And because it is happening in our own towns and back yards, we have the power and responsibility to do something about it. We can plant native trees and vegetation to feed the base of our local food webs. You can learn more about this process by attending a set of St. Michael's college events happening about a week from the release data of this podcast. Other events will be live-streamed and recorded so there are multiple ways to attend. Please join me and the St. Mike's community to protect our planet's biological diversity.

Our largest native North American rodent dramatically improves habitats by eliminating the simple structure of streams and replacing that structure with a series of new habitats. Felled trees open canopy gaps allowing light to reach the forest floor. New beaver dams create ponds that favor standing water invertebrates, fish, and birds. Older ponds infill with silt and result in beaver meadows. And of course flowing water streams exist between these structures so the overall impact of beavers at the ecosystem scale is to diversify habitats. This episode focuses on the North American species but I briefly get into their European cousins also. I hope this brief chat helps foster an appreciation for these amazing animals.

Little wooden spheres attached to dry stalks in meadows are homes to the larvae of a certain fly. You can see them in patches of meadow where ever goldenrod grows. As the plant grows, a fly lays an egg into the growing tip.  The hatchling larva releases chemicals that compel the plant to produce a golf-ball size growth called a "gall".  If you lived in a house lined entirely with edible plant material, you'd have an approximation of a gall.  This episode describes the biology of goldenrod galls and suggests ways to use them for educational purposes.

When a new invasive species sweeps across a region, it can leave destruction in its wake. Sometimes it's a matter of an occasional defoliation as is the case with the spongy moth. In other cases the new species can take out an entire species such as the American elm or the American chestnut. Unfortunately, the emerald ash borer is in the latter category, except that there are three species at risk. This saddens me for many reasons. Ash trees are beautiful and serve important biological roles at the base of forest food webs.  They underpin important cultural traditions both for the Abenaki and for the Irish. Vermonters are well aware that black ash provides the raw materials for traditional Abenaki baskets. You may well wonder Irish tradition is fostered by Vermont ash? When I first moved to Vermont I learned at the Champlain Valley Fair, that ash root stock with a little trunk still attached was being shipped to Ireland to manufacture our traditional hurley sticks for one of our national sports: hurling (which has nothing to do with the after effects of beer consumption). The wood grain sweeping through the wood down into the root provides the necessary grain curvature to make these sticks. With our ash now infested, I sincerely hope we are not exporting it anywhere.

As we lose our ash, I encourage people to plant a diverse selection of native tree species so that when the next invasive species comes, your plantings eill not be decimated. 

Winter flying moths show up in November and sometimes later.  This essay describes their unusual lack of flight abilities and the alternative ways that they disperse.  I also explore insect collections and the scientific value of collecting specimens and how entomologists are trained. For good measure, I explain how these particular moths earned the moniker "flunker moths".

There are many caddisfly species feeding under the ice in our ponds, streams, and wetlands. Most aquatic insect growth happens in winter when the stream bed food supply is at its peak. The base of the stream food web is not provided by plants growing in the stream but instead drops in in the form of falling leaves. You might expect the peak to therefore happen in fall, but the leaves must first soak and steep. This process leaches out the chemicals that protected the leaves from herbivores during their productive lives. Next, fungi and bacteria colonize the leaves after which time, the leaves are edible to insects. But most of us notice aquatic insects including caddisflies, when they emerge as winged adults. One caddisfly in particular emerges in winter and is the subject of this first podcast of 2023. Welcome to season three and thanks for listening.

Western conifer seed bugs are among the many insect visitors that may make your home theirs for the winter. They seek hibernation spots in fall and even the best kept homes provides all sorts of prime real estate for six-legged critters. We tend to see them coming or going in fall and spring, but moving decoration boxes from attic or basement tends to wake sleeping guests at this time of year. So you may see a stray box elder bug, lady beetle, or even a Western conifer seed bug scrambling along your window sill in mid winter. None of the mini visitors I mentioned are cause for alarm and you will certainly be safe from seed bugs .... unless you happen to be a conifer seed. But conifer seed bugs are not pantry pests and so even your pine nuts will be safe.  If you find a stray insect or several, a glass and an envelope is all you need to turn them loose.  And if a much larger count disrupts your happy home, a quick pass with the long tube on your vacuum is a more than viable alternative to chemical warfare.  Besides, after death by insecticide, you'll still have to suck up the remains. All of that said, I would make an exception for bed bugs; if you are unlucky enough to host these particularly unwelcome guests, it is time to call in the professionals. 

Duckweed can entirely coat summer ponds, but have you ever wondered what happens to them in winter when the ponds ice over? This episode gets into exactly where duckweeds go when the snow flies, and how they make it back from their wintering grounds.

What can each of us do to reduce eutrophication and harmful algal blooms? Reducing runoff from our properties, neighborhoods, and campuses is an excellent first step. And picking up after your pet does no harm either. Reducing water flow from properties can reduce soil erosion and movement of phosphorus to our favorite water bodies. Simply redirecting your downspouts to the lawn instead of the driveway can be a good first step that also has the advantage of reducing ice buildup in winter. Episode image is cropped from a photo uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Dave Huth from Allegany County, NY, USA

Perhaps in your childhood, you may have made paper doilies? Folded paper with delicately cut holes that when unfolded revealed a symmetrical pattern? Imagine for moment that your skill level at this particular pass time was so great, that you could produce a spectacular piece of art in miniature - perhaps as small as a quarter inch long. If you have such fine motor skills, then you are well on your way to making your own fake lace bug. Real lace bugs are fantastically ornate true bugs (Hemiptera) in the family Tingidae. In retrospect, and on hearing my own audio as I edited out my "em"s and pauses, "Tingidae" sounds like something I made up; or perhaps mispronounced because I grew up in Athlone, where "th" is rarely pronounced. But Tingidae is a very real family of insects so small as to be easily overlooked. But if your azaleas are looking a little shabby this year, it is possible that lace bugs are the culprits. Rather than reaching for a toxic spray, grab a clip on macro lens for your cellphone camera, you may be rewarded with a view of a spectacular little fellow traveler. Episode art is from Wikimedia Commons uploaded by Louisa Howard of Dartmouth College.

Many of our garden plants have "perfect" unblemished leaves lacking any evidence of nibbles taken by hungry herbivores, or dwelling places of leaf miners and other native insects. This artificial state of perfection is because many of our garden plants are from other continents and our native insects have zero chance of eking out a living from their foliage. But native plants have co-evolved with a diverse community of insects that live in and on them and in turn form essential links in the food web that feeds native birds and mammals. Hackberry nipple galls are formed by tiny insects that emerge as adults in fall and are valuable foodstuff for migrating birds. And the hackberry trees do not seem even slightly the worse for the wear.

Who doesn't love a daddy long legs? But which one do you really love? The cellar spiders that some people call "daddy long legs", or the larger cranefly that may well crash into your porch lights, or what I call "daddy long legs": the spider-like harvestmen common in shaded woods, gardens, or sometimes in your house.  These amazing arachnids are the subjects of an urban legend regarding venom toxicity.  In reality these familiar organisms are beneficial in your garden and should be granted the space and respect that fellow travelers deserve.

As the name suggests, drain flies may well emerge from floor drains.  They are not a sign of poor house keeping....rather they are a sign that you have drains.  The larvae inhabit your plumbing in places like shower drains and floor drains.  You may well see them at any time of year and so September is a perfect time to release this episode and kick off a new season.

Whirligig beetles are wonderful little creatures of the summer that zoom about on water surfaces.  This episode get into some of their amazing adaptations to life on water surfaces.

Opossums are moving north in response to human-caused climate change, but the current journey builds upon a far longer and more ancient journey from South America. One advantage of having them about is their talent for eating ticks, many of which have also moved north. Finally we will get into their most famous behavior: playing possum.

Natural wetlands accumulate nutrient-rich sediment carried in by rising floods. The sediments feed the wetland foodweb and are not carried downstream where they can cause algal blooms in lakes.  By providing places for flood water to go, wetlands reduce the potentially damaging impacts of floods.

Have you ever had the urge to send a potentially dangerous centipede  through the mail? Suppress that urge! But at least one person has sent a  fast-moving myriapod through the US Mail, and here is that story.

Spring flowers bloom before tree canopies fill out taking advantage of both accessible light, and early-year pollinators.  This little beetle is one of the earliest and is well protected by a toxic payload.

The leaves that provide breath-taking views in New England Falls are far from ecologically finished when they drop from trees. Many leaves end up fueling food webs in freshwater habitats. This episode covers some of the complex processes that occur under water before a leaf ever feeds a trout. 

Plankton are generally small plant-like and animal-like organisms that  live in the water column of our oceans, lakes, and ponds. Ecologists  have known that they plankton grow actively in lakes all summer and  often produce blooms in warm weather. Until recently, ecologists  considered that plankton died back in winter and were not an important  source of food under ice.  But recent research has made it clear that  plankton grows under ice and is important in the winter food web.  Dr.  Jason Stockwell and Dr. Ariana Chiapella, the first guests on Nature  Snippets, will explain their research on plankton under the ice of  Shelburne Pond Vermont.

An earlier version had some audio issues which have since been ironed out.

In winter, a small black caddisfly emerges from streams to complete its life cycle. The females don't bother with wings, unless, that is, they happen to emerge in summer.  These beautiful little caddisflies spend their larval lives filtering minute particles of organic matter from the water and cleaning the water in the process. 

A phenomenon called "the density anomaly of water" makes it possible for folks to drive trucks out on to Lake Champlain most years.  This episode explains why ice is less dense than water and why this allowed life as we know it to evolve. 

This special episode was recorded in a Saint Michael's College Senior Seminar.  Seminar participants had read Nature's Best Hope and we were honored to have Dr. Douglas Tallamy join us on zoom.  The episode consists of Doug's answers to students' questions regarding creating a Home Grown National Park. With the lion's share of land in the United States being in private hands, if each of us lives up to our responsibilities as stewards of the planet, we can go a long way toward enhancing biological diversity one yard or garden at a time. Please enjoy this episode and then go plant a tree native to your local area.

Snow Scorpionflies are not true flies and don't look especially like scorpions. But the "snow" part of their name is certainly accurate.  You may find these curious insects walking, hopping, but never flying from the snowy surfaces in your particular winter wonderland.  And if you do, why not post about them on iNaturalist. This episode includes a useful tip about cell phone photography of very small things. The cover art for this episode is cropped from an image of a female snow scorpionfly; note the total lack of wings. The image is from Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boreus_westwoodi_f.jpg 

Frozen lakes may appear incompatible with life.  But "life" begs to differ. Any ice fisher will be happy to list the fish they have caught and the fish are exquisitely adapted to life beneath an icy ceiling. Learn how a quirk of water's physical chemistry makes life possible at 39 degrees. In summer, lakes are stratified into warm layers on top with colder layers below. Frozen winter lakes and ponds are coldest on top and warmer below; this is called inverse stratification.

Water striders or pond skaters use pond surfaces as spider webs.  They prey upon aquatic organisms surfacing to breath, or on terrestrial organisms that end up stuck in the water surface.  This episode explains the photograph I use as the Nature Snippets' logo. Water striders are insects in the order Hemiptera, family Gerridae. The community of organisms living on, and supported by, the surface tension of water bodies, including those organisms hanging beneath the surface tension is called the neuston. 

Migration, hibernation, or actively going about their lives, insects are well adapted to dealing with winter weather.  This episode gets into some of my favorite examples of the exquisite adaptations that insects use to get through the coldest months.