Roadside Vernal Pool Scavenger Hunt

[NJChileHead]

Hi Jason,

I'd like to offer some input on the vernal pool criteria from a biological and ecological standpoint (not touching the hydro- or geological as I know that Spung-Man is the guy for that). My concern is that there seems to be some gray area as to how vernals are defined, so here's my $0.02.

A vernal pool is less defined by its intermittency or hydrology and more defined by the criteria that there is at least one or more species of fauna (with emphasis on amphibians) that relies on a confined body of water for its continued existence, and that continued existence in turn depends on the absence of fish predation. Therefore, the lack of inflow and outflow (preventing fish from entering the pool) is a default part of the criteria.

If I were to challenge the traditional definition of a vernal pool, I'd do it with the following definition: a vernal pool is a miniature ecosystem where the fauna that utilize it does not reside in the pool for the entire year, but migrate from their resident locations to the pool to a) breed (primary) or b) feed (secondary), and the existence of the pool is essential for the breeders.

In terms of breeding, a vernal pool is most clearly identified when it is a body of water where there is the presence of at least one obligate vernal pool breeder. The obligate vernal breeders in the state are the ambystomatid salamanders (marbled, spotted, blue-spotted, tiger, Jefferson), and the wood frog and spadefoot toad. These obligate vernal pool breeders will return to their natal site to breed, and use homing and chemoreception to find the pool. The breeding site fidelity means that destruction of the habitat will remove the breeding site and will seriously inhibit the breeding activity of the population. If you have a confined body of water with an obligate vernal pool breeder breeding, laying eggs, and undergoing full metamorphosis, then you have a vernal pool.

Now for the gray area: another method of identifying a pond as a vernal pool is by the hydrologic criteria (no inflow/outflow, holds water during most of year, etc.) plus the breeding or feeding activity of at least two facultative vernal pool species. There is a long list of facultative vernal pool species, some more rare or threatened than others.

I feel that using the latter definition could potentially set up more challenges for the observer or person reporting a pool. For example: green frogs (L. clamitans, a facultative vernal pool breeder) can breed nearly anywhere. They have a remarkable ability to find water from a long distance away (ask anyone with a backyard pond far from any other water source), and they are very much generalists in their selection of breeding habitat (I've seen them breeding in the holes created by fresh blowdowns). It would not be unreasonable to find green frogs sitting in the water in a tire rut. It would also not be unreasonable for a water snake (another facultative vernal pool species) that is crossing between two wetlands to stop in the tire rut to feed on a green frog. That being said, I don't think that this should qualify the tire rut as a vernal pool. It loosens the definition and adds dimensions that may complicate the conservation efforts down the road.

Now for even more gray area: the tire rut becomes a vernal pool if an obligate species breeds there, but if two facultative species are found breeding there, such as green and bull frogs, should this and does this qualify the tire rut as a vernal pool? It is a confined body of water, it has no inflow or outflow, it has two facultative vernal breeders present, and it holds water during the crucial seasons of the year-is this a vernal pool? I'd question it, because of the ability of green and bull frogs to breed nearly anywhere.

Now let's change the scenario and say that I observed the full development and metamorphosis of Fowler's toads and Pine Barrens tree frogs in the tire rut, I would propose that this a vernal pool. Why? Because the Pine barrens tree frogs are more sensitive to habitat disturbance, are endangered, and because both of these species are less of a 'habitat generalist' than the green and bull frogs (although I admit that Fowler's toads can be pretty resourceful when breeding as well). In short, I believe that they will rely on this body of water more than green or bull frogs would. I think that it helps to make these kinds of distinctions when labeling a body of water as a vernal pool.

Interested in hearing your thoughts,

Chilehead

 

[Ben Ruset]

You had asked if it was really getting that bad up North. This isn't Wharton, but here is what some of the off-roaders are up to behind Whitesbog. It is even more wide-spread than it appears in satellite. They are driving all over the stream corridor. They even put trash-cans up in some places(Whose coming and emptying them?) in an ironic and tragic effort to appear environmentally conscience.

How do you know that the people driving all over the stream corridor are the same people that put the trash cans up?

 

[Gibby]

I'm certain that the DEP has known about the location at Whitesbog since 2008 and was reminded again as recently as 2012 . A simple search on YouTube will explain why.

There are many here who work with the COs of the region and are aggressive in protecting the flora and fauna of the pinelands.

 

[Jason Howell]

Hi Jason,

A vernal pool is less defined by its intermittency or hydrology and more defined by the criteria that there is at least one or more species of fauna (with emphasis on amphibians) that relies on a confined body of water for its continued existence, and that continued existence in turn depends on the absence of fish predation. Therefore, the lack of inflow and outflow (preventing fish from entering the pool) is a default part of the criteria.

If I were to challenge the traditional definition of a vernal pool, I'd do it with the following definition: a vernal pool is a miniature ecosystem where the fauna that utilize it does not reside in the pool for the entire year, but migrate from their resident locations to the pool to a) breed (primary) or b) feed (secondary), and the existence of the pool is essential for the breeders.

In terms of breeding, a vernal pool is most clearly identified when it is a body of water where there is the presence of at least one obligate vernal pool breeder. The obligate vernal breeders in the state are the ambystomatid salamanders (marbled, spotted, blue-spotted, tiger, Jefferson), and the wood frog and spadefoot toad. These obligate vernal pool breeders will return to their natal site to breed, and use homing and chemoreception to find the pool. The breeding site fidelity means that destruction of the habitat will remove the breeding site and will seriously inhibit the breeding activity of the population. If you have a confined body of water with an obligate vernal pool breeder breeding, laying eggs, and undergoing full metamorphosis, then you have a vernal pool.

Now for the gray area: another method of identifying a pond as a vernal pool is by the hydrologic criteria (no inflow/outflow, holds water during most of year, etc.) plus the breeding or feeding activity of at least two facultative vernal pool species. There is a long list of facultative vernal pool species, some more rare or threatened than others.

I feel that using the latter definition could potentially set up more challenges for the observer or person reporting a pool. For example: green frogs (L. clamitans, a facultative vernal pool breeder) can breed nearly anywhere. They have a remarkable ability to find water from a long distance away (ask anyone with a backyard pond far from any other water source), and they are very much generalists in their selection of breeding habitat (I've seen them breeding in the holes created by fresh blowdowns). It would not be unreasonable to find green frogs sitting in the water in a tire rut. It would also not be unreasonable for a water snake (another facultative vernal pool species) that is crossing between two wetlands to stop in the tire rut to feed on a green frog. That being said, I don't think that this should qualify the tire rut as a vernal pool. It loosens the definition and adds dimensions that may complicate the conservation efforts down the road.

Now for even more gray area: the tire rut becomes a vernal pool if an obligate species breeds there, but if two facultative species are found breeding there, such as green and bull frogs, should this and does this qualify the tire rut as a vernal pool? It is a confined body of water, it has no inflow or outflow, it has two facultative vernal breeders present, and it holds water during the crucial seasons of the year-is this a vernal pool? I'd question it, because of the ability of green and bull frogs to breed nearly anywhere.

Now let's change the scenario and say that I observed the full development and metamorphosis of Fowler's toads and Pine Barrens tree frogs in the tire rut, I would propose that this a vernal pool. Why? Because the Pine barrens tree frogs are more sensitive to habitat disturbance, are endangered, and because both of these species are less of a 'habitat generalist' than the green and bull frogs (although I admit that Fowler's toads can be pretty resourceful when breeding as well). In short, I believe that they will rely on this body of water more than green or bull frogs would. I think that it helps to make these kinds of distinctions when labeling a body of water as a vernal pool.

Interested in hearing your thoughts,

Chilehead

I like your definition and line of thought, it closely follows what is available from the State's vernal pool identification guide.

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/ensp/pdf/vptrain04.pdf

The State's qualifications certainly leave a very loose definition available to an observer, excepting the points you mentioned about observed breeding, but I do not interpret that loose definition to be a concern for conservation efforts. One point not yet mentioned is that the State limits vernal pools to no less than 10 square feet, which may eliminate most tire ruts or other temporary depressions.

I have been trying to find the State's Map of confirmed vernal pool locations. I will report back when I locate it.

 

[Spung-Man]

1) Am I correct to assume that the weathered quartz sand/dust created during periglacial times is less porus than quartz sand not subjected to cryogensis? is this soil unique to spung basins?

Jeff, I misread your question. You were referring to the pore space between weathered grains, not the actual grain-wetting characteristics of individual microfractured quartz! Spung bottom sediments are densely packed, their fine interstitial pore space clogged with dust. Larger spungs are centripetally drained (Wolfe 1953) through natural pipes that I call bellybuttons (Demitroff 2007). Similar drain pipes occur in other arid zone basins like those found out West. Spung walls and bottoms are very leaky. On a hot summer day you can feel cold streams of groundwater issuing from pipes, which contrasts with warmer spung hydrofill, should you venture into their realm.

Wolfe PE. 1953. Periglacial frost-thaw basins in New Jersey. The Journal of Geology. 61, 2: 133–141​

S-M

 

[woodjin]

Jeff, I misread your question. You were referring to the pore space between weathered grains, not the actual grain-wetting characteristics of individual microfractured quartz! Spung bottom sediments are densely packed, their fine interstitial pore space clogged with dust. Larger spungs are centripetally drained (Wolfe 1953) through natural pipes that I call bellybuttons (Demitroff 2007). Similar drain pipes occur in other arid zone basins like those found out West. Spung walls and bottoms are very leaky. On a hot summer day you can feel cold streams of groundwater issuing from pipes, which contrasts with warmer spung hydrofill, should you venture into their realm.

Wolfe PE. 1953. Periglacial frost-thaw basins in New Jersey. The Journal of Geology. 61, 2: 133–141​

S-M

Great thanks. I was stuggling with your previous response to that question LOL this explains how water moves through the dense quartz dust. Are the bellybuttons created by water pressure?

 

[Spung-Man]

Jeff, my journey from tree expert to the adopted discipline of geographer is not bracketed by conventional cognition of time and space. To me tiny sand grains are huge boulder-sized observation obstacles to nanoparticles, and that Pinelands past permafrost occurred just yesterday. It's a wonder that I can even tie my shoes anymore!

One hypothesis has it that these pipes might be controlled by sea-level change causing water upwelling and subsidence (French & Demitroff 2001; also see Savage 1982, The Mysterious Carolina Bays), a concept that Canadian geographer J. Ross Mackay suggested to us. However, I think most of the effect is normal geologic tunnel erosion (piping) in a cold, dry, and windy (periglacial) environment.

S-M

 

[bobpbx]

I argue there are four Pleistocene hydric features found in the Pinelands. Their names in Piney-speak vernacular include spungs, savannah, blue holes, and cripples.

Mark, I recently read a USGS sponsored paper titled "The Ecology of Atlantic White Cedar Wetlands-A community profile". The link is below, and I'm quite certain you have already read it too. I have a question regarding this report. There is a very interesting figure on page 5 that shows the impact on the downstream outwash plain due to a near-stagnant glacier that is melting. It shows loose blocks of ice lying half submerged in the terrain while the glacier is melting, and when the glacier is gone, the only thing left is the water-filled hole (of course). Could these blocks of ice have reached as far as this area we live in? Could some of our spungs actually have their origin in big blocks of ice?

http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/techrpt/85-7-21.pdf

 

[Spung-Man]

Could these blocks of ice have reached as far as this area we live in? Could some of our spungs actually have their origin in big blocks of ice? http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/techrpt/85-7-21.pdf

Bob,

Now I know why I love NJPineBarrens; the observations are always so interesting! You ask a very good question. The Pine Barrens was positioned within miles of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, a rampageous thug that in volume was nearly 50% larger than today’s Antarctic Ice Sheet. With all that frozen water so close by, surely great outwash sheets must have blanketed the Pines. That’s the way it works at ice marginal land in most places around the globe.

However, we manage to do things differently here in South Jersey. I didn’t appreciate just how unusual the New Jersey Pine Barrens were until my newest paper on ventifacts. The manuscript went through a rigorous review process where European Quaternary experts wondered the same thing; why wasn’t I writing about glacial outwash plains like those found across the puddle and in the mid-West?

Then it dawned on me (Demitroff 2015), what makes the Pine Barrens unique is the cuesta (asymmetric ridge) that borders the Inner and Outer Coastal Plains. This topographic barrier blocked glacial outwash from entering the Pine Barrens. Instead, glacial melt was carried around us by the Delaware and Hudson. Drainageways skirted us to the east and west. The Pine Barrens has been starved of water, ice, and sediments. It truly was a polar-like barren badlands. The widespread presence of sand sheets, sand wedges, ground wedges, desert varnish, and ventifacts here attests to this lack of iciness.

Stockton Professor Marsh (1985) once proposed a Delaware River ice-dam had flooded across northern Hammonton, creating the massive high-energy braided channels we see around Dutchtown. Stockton Professor Farrell (1985) also reported these massive washes. Newell & Wyckoff (1992) demonstrated that there were no Delaware River sediments present, and ascribed the massive braided channels to snowmelt over frozen ground. French & Demitroff (2003; 2012) agreed.

Demitroff M. 2015. Pleistocene ventifacts and ice-marginal conditions, New Jersey, USA. Permafrost and Periglacial Processes. On invitation for a special issue dedicated to Session 12 of EUCOP4, Techniques of Palaeoenvironmental Reconstruction from Periglacial Deposits. DOI: 10.1002/ppp.1860

Farrell SC, Gagnon K, Malinousky T, Columbo R, Mujica K, Mitrocsak J, Cozzi A, Van Woudenberg E, Weisbecker T. 1985. Pleistocene? braided stream deposits in the Atsion quadrangle area, northwestern Atlantic County, New Jersey. In Talkington RW (ed.). Geological Investigations of the Coastal Plain of Southern New Jersey, Part 1: Field Guide. 2nd Annual Meeting of the Geological Association of New Jersey, Geology Program. Pomona, NJ: Stockton State College. A-1 to A-12.

French HM, Demitroff M. 2003. Late Pleistocene periglacial phenomena in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey: GANJ Field Excursion Guide, October 11, 2003. In Hozik MJ, Mihalasky MJ (eds.). Field Guide and Proceedings, 20th Annual Meeting of the Geological Association of New Jersey, October 10–11, 2003. Trenton, NJ: Geological Association of New Jersey. pp. 117–142.

French HM, Demitroff M. 2012. Late-Pleistocene paleohydrology, eolian activity and frozen ground, New Jersey Pine Barrens, eastern USA. Netherlands Journal of Geosciences. 91, 1/2: 25–35.

Marsh ER. 1985. A Pleistocene lake in central New Jersey. In Talkington RW (ed.). 1985. Geological Investigations of the Coastal Plain of Southern New Jersey, Part 1: Field Guide. 2nd Annual Meeting of the Geological Association of New Jersey, Geology Program. Pomona, NJ: Stockton State College. A-14 to A-28.

Newell WL, Wyckoff JS. 1992. Paleohydrology of four watersheds in the New Jersey Coastal Plain. In Gohn GS. (ed.), Proceedings of the 1988 U.S. Geological Survey Workshop on the Geology and Geohydrology of the Atlantic Coastal Plain. United States Geological Survey, Circular 1059, Washington, DC, pp. 23–28.​

http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1992/1059/report.pdf​

Spung-Man

 

[bobpbx]

Thank you Mark, for that very cogent answer. I can certainly see it. I'm going to take a topographic map some day and trace where that cuesta ridge should be based upon the existing watersheds. It will probably be close to what it was then.