Freshair.net

I hate to be caught stealing but sometimes someone else says it better.  Bob Korpella (MN Class 2011) writes Freshare.net which always has interesting stories in its Nature section.  He has done it again with the two stories below.

The blog Nanoparticles in Trout Brains discusses some disturbing findings on the anatomic changes in trout fed nano particles like titanium oxide which is found in whitening agent found in paints, toothpaste, detergents.  Researchers found vacuoles (small holes) in the rainbow trout’s brains after these particles.  While the effects are unknown, I can't imagine anything good coming from it, unless it helps them distinguish between real and artificial flies.

A second story discusses why Gypsy Moth caterpillars climb high up on a tree to die from a viral infection.  Ordinarily they climb down the trees a night as protection from predators.  What causes this strange behavior?  Sorry, you will have to read his article.

The latest news on his nature page is always displayed in the lower corner of our blog page.

Monarch Update

Mass of Monarchs- Wikimed

It is shaping up to be a bad year for monarchs.  The Monarch Watch Blog is projecting very low numbers of migrating monarchs this year and an extremely low overwintering population in Mexico.

Their population is being hit by a double whammy.  First, the use of engineered crops of herbicide tolerant (HT) corn and soybeans is spreading each year.  These allow farmers to plant the corn closer together and spray glyphosate (Roundup, etc) over the crops to eliminate competing weeds.  Unfortunately, the milkweed necessary for monarchs to reproduce falls in that category.  You can imagine the corn fields as far as the eye can see with nary a milkweed in sight.

Second, the decreased monarchs that will be migrating will face some of the worst conditions in years.  Due to the drought in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Mexico, they will be navigating over 1000 miles of parched fields with no remaining nectaring plants.  Even our local fields have lost most of their blooms.

Monarch Watch collects its data by volunteers who tag monarchs across the US.  Lisa Bakerlink will be demonstrating monarch tagging at the Butterfly House at Nathanael Greene/Close Memorial Gardens this Saturday at 2:00 PM.  She tells me she has lots of butterflies to tag.  The public is encouraged to visit and participate in a little bit of natural science.  Click on this site for more details.

More on the plight of Monarchs is available at the Monarch Watch Blog.

Mast Survey

Red Oak Acorns

September is the time for completing a mast survey.  This does not refer to counting sailboats on Lake Stockton.  A mast survey means tromping through the woods assessing this year's production of walnuts, acorns and hickory nuts.

Armed with a clipboard and binoculars, the plan is to closely observe mature black walnuts, hickories, and red and white oaks, then grade their mast (nut) burden in four categories, ranging from heavy to few/none.  The binoculars are needed for the tall trees whose branches reach high above the understory.

Why should you care about mast?  Mast is necessary for the winter survival of deer, turkey, and squirrels.  The amount available helps predict population health and reproduction the following year.  This helps wildlife managers plan the next hunting season.  Hunters are interested as a predictor of how much game will be on the move.

Surveys are done by the Missouri Forestkeepers Network which mails out the recording sheets to members each fall.  There is also an annual tree assessment done by members in October.  Both of these reports can be done on your land or a nearby park or forest of your choosing.

Membership in the Missouri Forestkeepers Network is free to any interested individual, family or organization. You may report on your land or adopt any site you want.  It could have one tree on it or many trees.  Click here to download the enrollment.  Mast and tree assessments provide a great excuse to stroll through the forest with a purpose and the gifts don't hurt a bit.  You can even get some binoculars for the next hike.

Cost of Clean Water

Bull Creek

David Casaletto has written an interesting piece in the Ozarks Water Watch newsletter.  Water Quality: How Clean and at What Cost? considers the cost of both cleaning water to higher standards and applying those standards to even more waters.  This especially applies to the recently passed House Bill 89.

Now I know that mentioning a bill passed by the legislature just caused your eyes to glaze over.  Me too.  That is why his commonsense discussion is so important to read.  The pursuit of environmental issues such as clean water and clean air will be all the more difficult in the coming decade.  Consider these factors:

• There are more of us on the planet and we are expanding into new areas daily, areas that don't necessarily have available water, soil for septic systems and protection from water runoff pollutants such as fertilizer and chemicals.
• Clean water and air standards increase as we find more pollutants such as increasing ozone, prescription drugs in the water, etc.
• Tackling these issues will mean more regulation and /or more involvement by private citizens and industries.
• All of this requires more money, this in an economy that is stretched beyond its limits.  We face some difficult choices and trade-offs.

 Now, wipe your eyes and read the very digestible Water Quality: How Clean and at What Cost?.

Wood Beetle

While looking for fungi at the Missouri Mycological Society (MOMS) foray at Mingo, I turned over a log which disintegrated in my hands, exposing 20 plus large orange beetles.  After a quick perusal of Bugguide, I emailed Chris Barnhart to save time.  He pointed me to the Passalidae family.They looked familiar, resembling the Bess Beetles I wrote about last November. 
 

Mites under front legs

Those specimens were Horned Passalus - Odontotaenius disjunctus, also known as Bess Beetles and Patent Leather Beetles for their pitch black shiny body. These however were bright orange although they were packed together like the previous bess beetles.  The shape, size and parallel grooves down the wing covers were identical.  When I turned them over, there were the familiar mites almost invariably associated with their family of Passalids.  Information on the fascinating mite farming of many beetles can be found at the Macromite site.
  

Horn of horned passalus

A closeup side view showed the distinctive feature that gives them their other name, the horned passalus.  While holding it for pictures even I could hear its little soft squeaks as it struggled for freedom.

The puzzle of it color remained.  It took eight sites on Google to find the answer.  The Featured Creatures site of Florida University says:

Mature dark horned passalus

"These young adults lack the characteristic black shell of the species, and instead have a red coloration when they emerge from the pupal stage. This red color slowly darkens to black, at which point the insect is considered a mature adult (Schuster and Schuster 1985)."
Knowing this I dug around the bag of ground up wood and beetles I brought back and sure enough, there was an older sibling I hadn't seen before which was very close to black.  This proves once again that color can be deceptive when trying to identify species.

Both the last November blog and Featured Creatures have more detailed information on the interesting life cycle of these decomposers of wood.  They only eat dead wood and thanks to them, bacteria and fungi, they enrich the soil.  Without the decomposers, we would have dead logs hundreds of feet deep in our woods.  Bless their little orange and black bodies.

No Beetles were killed in producing this blog.

Swamp Rabbit

At the Missouri Mycological Society (MOMS) foray at Mingo National Wildlife Refuge this weekend, Barb learned about swamp rabbits from our new friends, Jack and Marty Toll.  Jack did his Master's thesis on these interesting bunnies and later managed the Mingo Refuge for a number of years.

Click to enlarge

The very next day she pointed out a swamp rabbit in the woods.  I was able to get a single telephoto picture of the south end of this north-bound rabbit before it disappeared into a thick mass of stinging nettle.  You may have to look carefully at the enlarged picture to find it.

A swamp rabbit (Sylvilagus aquaticus) is described at MDC Online as a type of cottontail that is much larger than our more familiar variety.  It inhabits the wetlands of the south and Mingo in the Bootheel is perfect territory.  It eats reeds, sedges and other plants, switching to twigs and bark of shrubs in the winter.

Swamp Rabbit- MDC

Without the thickets which hide our native cottontails it would seem to be a sitting duck (pardon the expression) in the swamp.  Fear not- it has a trick up its fuzzy tail.  Swamp rabbits can not only run up to 45 mph, they can also swim and dive under the water, coming under roots and vegetation.  They sometimes will hide in shallow water with only their noses exposed.

A swamp rabbit in Georgia gained fame in 1979 while escaping from a pack of hounds.  It jumped into a pond and swam toward President Jimmie Carter who was paddling in a boat away from the protection of Secret Service.  The encounter could have caused an environmental incident had not the President fended off the vicious animal with a paddle.  The whole frightening incident is described in this Wikipedia story.

Presidential Attack!   Note rabbit wake to the right.

Lest you think that President Carter was overly cautious, recall that five years earlier he could have seen Monty Python's Holy Grail.  You can see that horrifying scene on Youtube.  Fortunately, Barb's fierce-some reputation with rabbits in our garden has spread to the southeastern lagomorphs and this poor creature ran away.  Lucky for it!

Soldiers Are Mating

Mating Leatherwings- Click to enlarge

In the fall, a young beetle's fancy turn to thoughts of....... making more beetles.

We are seeing swarms of Soldier Beetles that we described in a past blog. Pennsylvania Leatherwing (Chauliognathus pensylvanicus) would normally feed on the nectar of Goldenrod and Thoroughwart (Eupatorium) that bloom from August through October. These members of the daisy family have been struggling with the heat and drought.

The leatherwings are now swarming on the nearest relative, the White Crownbeard (Verbesina virginica) that grows wild along our driveway and the undisturbed field edges. Since we had a second hay cutting last week, they are crowded on this only available food source, with 8-10 beetles on a flower cluster. Walking through these edges put us at risk of insect inhalation.

White Crownbeard proliferates on the untended edges. Its winged stalks grow up to 7 feet tall, dwarfing the modest flower heads which resemble Queen Anne's Lace. However, it produces our favorite flower in the first hard frosts of winter. Thin ribbons of ice are extruded from the dried Frostweed stems, producing a wide variety of "frost flower" shapes in a season otherwise devoid of blossoms.

Frost floweer

Speaking of proliferation, you will notice that most of the beetles are actively mating with three pair or more on each flower head. They are excellent pollinators, crawling over the small florets before moving on to the next one. This helps insure another crop of frost flowers and ice ribbons this winter. As long as they are pollinating the future frost flowers, I don't mind having them fly in my face for a few weeks.