Internship Photo Essay!

Vernal pools are pools of water that fill for some parts of the year and are homes to crustaceans and other vernal pool plants and animals. They will most likely dry up for some parts of the year. They are important in the environment because they contribute greatly to the food chain and there are also endangered and threatened species that reproduce in the wet seasons. They are very unpredictable, meaning that the amount of time they are filled with water cannot be predicted ahead of time because they fill depending on the amount of rain that comes during the season. Vernal pools are biphasic, which means they have two seasons, a dry season and a wet season. They are located on the coastal and inland mesas and valleys of southern California. They are limited to only certain soil types that have an impermeable layer of soil at the bottom, which causes the pools of water to fill and not absorb into the soil. The sad fact about these vernal pools that are homes to thousands of little crustaceans is that they are gradually disappearing. 97% of vernal pools have been completely destroyed. Because of this, there are 20 vernal pool plants and animals that are listed as either threatened or endangered. The vernal pools are disappearing because of the construction and development of land where they are located.

Carmel Mountain Preserve was where my mentor’s most recent project has been based. It was finally the day where I would go out and help collect samples from the vernal pools that needed to be tested. The only thing that I was a little bit worried about was that I had no idea what I was doing.. at all. Katie who is my mentor’s assistant, briefly prepped me on the way over to the site. When arriving at Carmel Mountain Preserve I saw my mentor for the first time since internship had started. It was probably the most enjoyably day that I had during my internship experience. Over the course of the 3 hours that I was there, I learned every single step and method that is done in collecting the samples from the vernal pools. I learned about all the different species and the reasons behind all the collections.

The fairy shrimp are the special interest species among all the collections with the vernal pools. They are one of the endangered species that live among the vernal pools but are most carefully watched and monitored. The projects directed towards the restoration of the fairy shrimp population are looking into making and restoring the vernal pools that they live in. To help restore the populations of the fairy shrimp, data needs to be recorded about other species that live in the vernal pool and data such as the pH and total dissolved solutes in the water. All of this makes a difference because knowing that the fairy shrimp will survive in the vernal pool needs to be confirmed with the collected data. The fairy shrimp have a range of development from 10 to 14 days and then they live for 20 to 30 days on average. During this time they reproduce and lay cysts using a strategy called bet-hedging.  The strategy of bet-hedging is what makes it possible for there to almost always be fairy shrimp every wet season. They do this because sometimes there isn’t enough time to reproduce and die before reproduction occurs. Bet-hedging is when cysts are laid and will hatch at different times that they get wet in the wet season. There will be cysts laid during reproduction and when the wet season ends the cysts will remain in the soil of the vernal pools during the dry season. The next time the wet season occurs, some of the cysts will hatch. The key part of this is that not all of the cysts will hatch. The remaining cysts will hatch in the next couple seasons to come. The fairy shrimp play a big part in the food chain and that is why the importance in the restoration of them is key.

 Vernal pools are very unpredictable, especially the amount of time that they stay full during the wet season. The amount of time the vernal pools stay wet depends on the amount of rain fall during that season. The rain fall for that season cannot be predicted ahead of time so it is never really known how long they will stay full. Some of the times, the vernal pools do not stay full enough for the species in them to reproduce. It’s not only the fairy shrimp that do not have enough time, but the many other species that are in the vernal pools as well. The very first time I went out to the Carmel Mountain Preserve site, there were only 4 vernal pools that were still full. The second pool that we had collected from, we were fortunate enough to have seen baby spade foot toad tadpoles. These tadpoles are also endangered which was even more special about seeing them. After the huge rain storms we went out to go see if we could spot any hatched fairy shrimp in the vernal pools. The vernal pool that we had seen the spade foot toad tadpoles in was completely filled. It looked like a giant lake after the huge amounts of rainfall. When we started looking for baby fairy shrimp in this pool, we saw tons of tadpoles. The only difference was that these tadpoles were almost done with their metamorphosis and close to loosing their tails! Seeing the baby frogs was one of my highlights of my internship. I was out collecting data with Katie that day and she had never even seen the tadpoles get that big before. She said that the vernal pools would usually dry up before they reach that stage in their life. So obviously when the vernal pools are full and stay full for a longer amount of time than expected, different species can reproduce, grow and reach the stage where they live to their total expected life.

In the lab the samples that are collected from the wet season and dry season are cleaned and counted and the data is recorded. In the wet season there are samples collected from the vernal pools and the species that were collected in the net are stored in 70% ethanol and returned to the lab. When in the lab, each of the jars with the collected species is individually sorted and every different species is put into a different jar. This process is called “cleaning out” of the collected species. During the dry season soil core samples are collected to find the amount of cysts in each sample. This is important to see if the population of the fairy shrimp is increasing or decreasing. Most of my days in the lab involved very tedious work and it was all done under the microscope. Every day the only way to get by was by having the cheap entertainment from all of the students that were working in the lab as well. When there is that much time to spend working in the lab, its very refreshing to spend a couple hours sharing stories and cracking jokes.