I am an aquatic ecologist, a profession of which most people are unaware. Everyone has heard of ecology, usually in an inappropriate sense when what they mean is environmental science. Actually, people ofetn say “the ecology” which pretty much has no meaning. They are talking about the environment. You don’t need to be an environmentalist to be an ecologist but almost all ecologists are environmentalists.
Within aquatic ecology there are subspecialties. Moving water such as streams and rivers are considerably different than standing water, like ponds and lakes, and the demands of the two has resulted in organisms with unique biologies. We call these lotic and lentic systems, respectively. I am in the standing water group. Specialization goes much further than that. Standing water can be either salty or fresh and freshwater can occur in systems as large as Lake Superior or as small as a thimble. Tropical systems work differently than temperate systems and high altitude systems have unique properties. My own specialization has to do with the aspect of time as some standing waters are permanent (at least in terms of human lifetimes) and others are temporary. In New England, where I live, these temporary waters are typically called vernal pools but they have different names around the world and it has been difficult to develop a standard, technical name for this type of habitat.
The specialization doesn’t stop there. I have friends that study plants, others that study frogs, salamanders, birds, and algae. I study none of these. There are those of us that study zooplankton, the smallest animals that swim or float. I have to be careful and mention swimming because there are other animals that live on the bottom that don’t swim (these are called the benthos). I have studied them too because some of them eat the ones that swim.
I understand why most people have chosen to study anything but zooplankton and for that matter why the vast majority of the population has no idea what zooplankton are. The reason is simple. Most of these animals are small, about the size of the letters you see printed here. Oh, sure there are some behemoths that are the size of one of your toes but these are considered spectacular and most that I have seen are from Australia so most of the world is left with giants the size of a fingernail.
This blog will be about vernal pools and the men and women of science who study them. I’ll try and make it fun because it has been fun studying them. Although the topic sounds parochial and sometimes dry, I think that there are themes that transcend the boundaries of these small ponds that can be applied to all of ecology and even to our own, much bigger lives. Bear with me, and we’ll see where this goes.
