Jellyfish- Fresh Water and Foul

Jellyfish- MDC

The Thursday News-Leader carried an MDC story about Freshwater Jellyfish that was news to me.  These exotics were accidentally introduced in the 1800s from China, possibly with importation of exotic fish.  They are found in still waters of lakes and ponds, blossoming unpredictably in some summer months.

"Freshwater jellyfish are about the size of a quarter. The best time to see them is in mid to late summer floating or swimming at the water's edge. Sightings occur in a somewhat yo-yo cycle. Numerous sightings one year will be followed by no sightings at a site for a year or more. This is one of the mysteries associated with the organism."

Jellyfish are the adult stage of their life, much like the caterpillar-butterfly life cycle.  After spending most of their life as polyps attached to the bottom structures of quiet water, they split off a bud which drifts off as a jellyfish, reproducing by releasing eggs or sperm which fertilize and settle on the bottom to start the cycle again.
Jellyfish eat zooplankton, worms and other small creatures.

"Once prey come in contact with the tentacles, venom is injected from the tentacles and the paralyzed organism is brought into the jellyfish's mouth and digested. The stings these tiny tentacles inject pose no threat to humans."

Once again, the biodiversity of the Ozarks amazes me.  Intended or unintended, we seem to have it all.  I am waiting for the first report of a polar bear any day now.

Jellyfish Gone Wild
Smithsonian has a big article on jellyfish titled The New King of the Sea.   It highlights the rapidly exploding jellyfish populations in recent years.  Not only are numbers of jellyfish expanding exponentially, but the previous seasonal patterns are disappearing as masses of jellies are showing up any time of the year.  The shear bulk of these swarms has had a significant impact on human and marine activities as described below.

"Nightmarish accounts of “Jellyfish Gone Wild," as a 2008 National Science Foundation (NSF) report called the phenomenon, stretch from the fjords of Norway to the resorts of Thailand.  By clogging cooling equipment, jellies have shut down nuclear power plants in several countries; they partially disabled the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan four years ago. In 2005, jellies struck the Philippines again, this time incapacitating 127 police officers who had waded chest-deep in seawater during a counterterrorism exercise, apparently oblivious to the more imminent threat. (Dozens were hospitalized.) This past fall, a ten-ton fishing trawler off the coast of Japan capsized and sank while hauling in a netful of 450-pound Nomura’s jellies."

The NSF 2008 report,  Jellyfish Gone Wild mentioned above lists many interesting jellyfish facts as well as the more dramatic incidents.

• Twenty to forty people die in the Philippines each year from box jellyfish stings that can kill within three minutes.
• Chesapeake Bay reports over 500,000 jellyfish stings each year.
• One third of the weight of all life in Monterrey Bay is made up of jellyfish.
• 400 vast Dead Zones in world oceans are too polluted for almost all life except jellyfish.
• 500 million refrigerator-sized jellyfish float into the Sea of Japan daily during blooms.

These exploding populations can severely impact the vast waters they inhabit.

"During the 1990s, a voracious, invasive jellyfish-like creature known as the comb jelly was introduced into the Black, Azov and Caspian Seas.  Uncontrolled by natural predators, comb jelly populations quickly ran wild.  The rise of the comb jelly contributed to crashes in the populations of anchovies in the Black and Azov seas and to crashes of a small commercial fish known as kilka in the Caspian Sea.

How did the comb jelly damage the populations of these commercial fish?  By eating their eggs and larvae and by eating the same zooplankton prey they eat. "

As usual, the role of human activities in the dramatic increase of jellyfish population is unknown.  Whether "global warming," acidification of the seas due to carbon dioxide or pollution are major factors is unknown.  But in the words of the NSF report,  "The global influence of jellyfish on marine ecology warns all of us: Ask not for whom the jellyfish’s bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Update 9-22-2015
The Ozarks Water Watch contains information on their presence in our local lakes. 
The NSF report Jellyfish Gone Wild is full of information on the life cycle of jellyfish as well as their swarming locations and impacts.

Birds Gotta Fly- But Where?

One of the frustrations of air travel is the inability to fly to nearby locations by a direct flight.  Birds have a similar problem.
Logic would tell us that birds are free to fly anywhere to find better food or cuter mates.  It turns out that they operate within the same boundaries as many ground based animals.  A Bird's Eye View on Freshare.net discusses research on flight patterns of Missouri's resident birds such as jays, woodpeckers and cardinals.  
Dylan Kesler, assistant professor in fisheries and wildlife at the University of Missouri’s School of Natural Resources has radio-tagged red bellied woodpeckers, then tracked and plotted their movements with GPS.  To quote:

Those studies provided preliminary confirmation of what has been suspected by conservationists since the 1990s – that birds make landscape-influenced flight decisions along paths where they can immediately dive into tree cover to escape predators and readily find food.
The research also revealed that the birds avoid large areas without trees. Such exposure can make them easy pickings for predators. These open habitat features include roads, rivers and forest gaps, as well as other man-made landscape features where there is no easy cover.

Highway W- Click to enlarge

Their research shows that the birds limited their flight to corridors of trees.  Now click on the picture of a typical "rural" landscape south of Ozark and envision their flight possibilities.
This has important implications in our time of habitat fragmentation.  We are steadily reducing their territory and fragmenting their populations.  How small is too small?  O nly time will tell.
I would encourage you to read A Birds Eye View and look at their maps. 

Purple Martin Megaflock

Photo by Chris Barnhart- Click to enlarge

Chris Barnhart put us on to the annual pre-migratory flocking of Purple Martins which are collecting at sunset north of Division at Old Orchard Road.  This is an annual event as they prepare for their trip south to the Amazon for the winter.  They routinely gather at various sites in North Springfield, covering the skies as they swoop into the trees for the night.  They are frequently mistaken for starlings flocking, but as swallows, their distinctive graceful flight is easy to distinguish.

You commonly hear that they eat lots of mosquitoes, but unfortunately it isn't true.  According to the MDC,

"These aerial acrobats catch flying insects on the wing.  They are not major predators of mosquitoes, which fly much lower than martins do.  A martin colony, however, may catch and eat several hundred beetles, horseflies, grasshoppers, dragonflies and wasps each day. Because inclement weather can greatly reduce the availability of flying insects, an extended period of rainy or cold weather can cause massive mortality in purple martin populations."

Purple Martins are the largest North American swallow and are sometimes called "America's Bird. " Originally they were cavity nesters, but early Native Americans began providing them gourd homes and European immigrants took up the habit more formally.  Over time east of the Rockies they have become completely dependent on humans, living only in human provided martin houses.  Now there are Purple Martin Societies, blogs, clubs, magazines and a large commercial market for houses and other paraphernalia.  There is extensive information about their life at Purplemartin.org.

Pre-migratory resting- Click to enlarge

Purple Martins begin to arrive in Missouri in late March and follow the blossoming insect populations north all the way into Canada.  After monogamous mating, they raise their chicks in the summer and then fuel up for the return to the Amazon.  Their pre-migration flocks can measure in the hundreds of thousands.  Having lived in apartment houses, they are very comfortable clustering together on tree branches as they prepare for their big trip.

Currently they are filling the skies (See this map) around 8:10 and settling in around 8:30.  You can probably catch the show for another 10 to 20 days.

Thanks to Chris and Deb Barnhart for the call and the pictures.
More on Purple Martin dwellings is available at missouribirds.com
and a pdf file with house designs at mdc4.mdc.mo.gov/Documents/12199.pdf 

Radioactive Boars

Spiegel Online

Missouri has a feral hog problem which has increased over recent years which we discuss below.  So far the damage hasn't reached the levels seen in Germany where the boars all but glow!
Hunting native wild boar in Europe has been a sport for thousands of years there, and its meat is still a popular menu item.  Spiegel On Line reports that in recent years, an increasing number of boars are contaminated with radiation, the results of the fallout of Ce-137 from the Chernobyl disaster in nearby Ukraine.
Boar are fond of mushrooms and truffles which are particularly efficient at absorbing radioactivity, even as other vegetation's cesium-137 levels are falling.  By German law, the government must compensate hunters who shoot boar subsequently testing out with high radioactive levels.  This payout doubled to $550,000 last year.
Increasing numbers of wild boar are occurring across Germany.  Last year 650,000 wild boar were shot, breaking the previous record of 287,000.  This population explosion is attributed to milder winters and the increasing growth of corn on farms. Human encounters are becoming much more common.  "Boars have stormed churches, chased police, rampaged through stores and living rooms, knocked an elderly woman off a bicycle, attacked a wheelchair-bound man, dug up corpses, and caused as many as 25,000 traffic accidents a year." change.org

Feral Hog- Click to enlarge

Back to Missouri
Our feral hogs are genetically a mix of breeds, combinations of Russian or Eurasian wild boar (razorbacks) and an assortment of domestic varieties.  The population has been expanding over the last 20 years as European wild boar were raised for hunting in licensed shooting areas. Many hogs escaped or were released on public land, and by 2000 private landowners were complaining of damage. Hunters are encouraged to shoot feral hogs on sight. This MDC article goes into more detail.

Feral hogs cause a lot of agricultural damage as well as soil disturbance and they even devour wildlife such as ground nesting birds and fawns.  Best classed as omnivores, feral hogs eat about anything they find, including sheep and goats. They are frequently attracted to birthing areas and most often take lambs or kids. They consume these newborn animals so completely that there often is little evidence that birthing and predation have occurred.
Of potentially greater economic damage, they can transmit diseases such as pseudorabies and swine brucellosis to domestic hogs.  Infection in a domestic farm's population could require destruction of the whole herd,  which occurs around six times a year in the US.  Swine brucellosis has been found in wild pigs in ten states and is known as undulant fever in humans.

Everything you need to know about Feral Hogs of Missouri is at the MDC Feral Hogs site.

Tumbling Creek Cave

Amazing Cave

On Saturday, an intrepid group of Master Naturalists* braved the heat to explore the land as well as the depths of the Ozark Underground Laboratory at Protem.  This remarkable 2600 acre site represents the incredible passion and chutzpah of its owners, Tom and Cathy Aley.
What else could explain the success they have had in buying a cave and spending over 30 years in protecting its 9 square mile watershed?  In their spare time they have invested in a wide variety of conservation projects, including an advanced septic system for a nearby school, all to protect a unique snail (and while they are at it, other unique threatened species and all the rest of the environment.
It is impossible to hear Tom's humor-laced lessons of the interaction of water, rock, chemistry and animals (humans included) without being swept along like water through our karst topography.  A brief description of the tour is found at their web site under Field Programs- Surface and Underground Tours.

Webworm- Jennifer Ailor- Click to enlarge

One highlight was finding the fungus webworm.  OK, it sounds like a weird highlight but stick with me.  They spin their webs of long vertical strands in small rocky shelves.  The tiny worm hangs suspended from a series of vertical silk threads which it travels across in search of small flies and other trapped critters which depend on bat guano for their imported nutrition. 
After 9 months of growth and development, it forms a pupa, much like a butterfly except a tiny gnat emerges.  The fungus gnat lives its brief anonymous life around the entrance to a cave.  After unseen mating, it flies deep into the darkness, looking for an area rich with bat guano.  There it deposits it eggs to resume the cycle.

Webworm-- Click to enlarge

The detailed Fungus Webworm story from Dr. David Ashley is here.

Webworm dining picture is here.
There is a story about Tumbling Creek Cave in Weird Missouri.

Survivors of the Expedition to Tumbling Creek include Marlyss Simmons, Allan Keller, Jaretta Beard, Caryn Fox and her husband Steve, Bob and Barb Kipfer, and Billy Thigpen from Sierra Club and our fearless leader Jennifer Ailor.

Phytoplankton and You

Humpback Whales Bubblenetting- click to enlarge

A new study in Nature, reveals for the first time that microscopic marine algae known as "phytoplankton" have been declining globally over the 20th century.  They found a decline of almost 1% per year.  Why should we, far away in the Ozarks, care?
How about breathing?  Phytoplankton is tiny but its mass absorbs CO2.  Of more immediate importance to mammals, it produces half the oxygen we breathe.  

"Phytoplankton forms the basis of the marine food chain and sustains diverse assemblages of species ranging from tiny zooplankton to large marine mammals, seabirds, and fish." says lead author Daniel Boyce.  "Phytoplankton is the fuel on which marine ecosystems run.  A decline of phytoplankton affects everything up the food chain, including humans."

This trend is particularly well documented in the Northern Hemisphere after 1950, and would translate into a decline of approximately 40% since 1950. The scientists found that long-term phytoplankton declines were negatively correlated with rising sea surface temperatures and changing oceanographic conditions.

A more detailed explanation of these findings can be found in Science Daily.

The impact of phytoplankton decline on the planet is hard to predict but I would hazard a guess that it ain't good.  As the base of the oceanic food chain it is bound to affect fish and mammals such as whales as well as all species in between.  There will likely be far more losers than winners. Those of us at the top of the food chain should be concerned.
 

Mean global temperature anomalies- 1880-2001 NOAA

Baby Fish don't like CO2
 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100707091211.htm
 There is still a lot of healthy debate about the role of human activity in producing global warming.  Either way, there are two facts that can no longer be ignored.

1. There is a global warming trend over the last 50+ years.  



From Wall Street Journal- click to enlarge

2. There is an increase in carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.  

In 2005, global atmospheric concentrations of CO2 were 35% higher than they were before the Industrial Revolution.  There are two main engines that remove carbon dioxide and convert it to oxygen- trees and phytoplankton.  We now have evidence that both are declining.  You do the math.

Dog-Day Cicada Revisited

The continued cicada chorus has been almost deafening, reminding me that I hadn't been able to memorize their Latin names.  On further reading, I came up with the common names of the most frequently heard cicada so I am expanding the previous posting.

Scissor Grinder cicada

Annual cicada, aka dog day cicada are discussed in an MDC article.   
The cicada singing now are the Tibicen species .  These are familiar to most of us because of their stout green and black body.  Their transparent wings extend beyond their abdomen, looking like they could never get them off the ground.*
The males make a loud mating call to attract a female, varying between a rhythmic buzz and a rattle that is an insect version of "So, do you come here often?"  The sound emanates from specialized membrane organs on their abdomen.  The sound and time of day is unique to each species.  Play the sound files below and you will immediately recognize the sounds. 

• T. robinsoniana (Robinson's cicada) makes this saw-like repetitive call (the loudest of any insect in North America), during the day.  It lives in forests and cedar groves.  When it starts its call, it is frequently joined by others in a mighty chorus.
• T. chloromera (Morning cicada) makes its familiar call during the day, a chatter which slowly builds to a crescendo, then slowly dies away.  They tend to live in shrubs and tall weeds along creek banks.  They have a long larval underground life cycle, but since these overlap, there are adults around every year.
• I know you will recognize the evening call of T. pruinosa (Scissor Grinder cicada), a rhythmic buzzing chirp, increasing in frequency before it dies away into a fading buzz.  They call from June to September.(see picture)

They lay their eggs at the base of trees and the emerging nymphs feed on the xylem of roots for 2-3 years before reaching adulthood.  Adults obtain sap from twigs and stems with their long beaks.  They molt several times, leaving their familiar dry paper-like husks on trees and buildings, a perfect mold of their last shape.  We used to see who could collect the most when I was a kid.  I know, my mother could never understand it either.

They have a large number of predators, the most impressive of which is the Eastern cicada killer.  This looks like a yellow jacket on steroids and you may see one emerging from its small hole in the ground to hunt its prey.  After paralyzing a cicada with its stinger, (see video) it laboriously hauls it back to the hole and lays eggs on the body.  Much like parasitic wasp eggs on a caterpillar, the larva feed on the paralyzed cicada, careful not to kill it until they are ready. The cicada killer won't attack us but may use its stinger for defense.  At 2 inches long, I don't think you will be tempted to pick one up anyway.**
Addendum:
An interesting time-lapse video on the cyclic 17 year cicada life cycle is at youtube.com.***
Tim Smith of MDC has posted Cicadas and Their Killers  on the MDC Fresh Afield blog
* Picture from Bugguide.net

**Picture from Texas A&M.
*** Sent by Hiltrud "Sam" Webber of Friends of the Garden.
Most information obtained from the MDC Poster, Singing Insects of Missouri.