Nature Snippets

This special episode was recorded in a Saint Michael's College Senior Seminar.  Seminar participants had read Nature's Best Hope and we were honored to have Dr. Douglas Tallamy join us on zoom.  The episode consists of Doug's answers to students' questions regarding creating a Home Grown National Park. With the lion's share of land in the United States being in private hands, if each of us lives up to our responsibilities as stewards of the planet, we can go a long way toward enhancing biological diversity one yard or garden at a time. Please enjoy this episode and then go plant a tree native to your local area.

Because this podcast frequently discusses very small organisms, I thought an episode on magnification would be of interest.  And because I know that some parents listen to this podcast, I decided to focus a little also on sharing the nature of small things with children.  So tips and tricks about getting close views of tiny things are featured. The cover art for this episode is a Wild M5 Stereoscopic microscope. The image was clipped from a Wikimedia Commons image uploaded by Michael K. Oliver: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:P_Humphry_Greenwood.jpg

Follow this link to view the inexpensive hand lens I mentioned: https://us.vwr.com/stibo/bigweb/std.lang.all/20/35/10312035.jpg  

Snow Scorpionflies are not true flies and don't look especially like scorpions. But the "snow" part of their name is certainly accurate.  You may find these curious insects walking, hopping, but never flying from the snowy surfaces in your particular winter wonderland.  And if you do, why not post about them on iNaturalist. This episode includes a useful tip about cell phone photography of very small things. The cover art for this episode is cropped from an image of a female snow scorpionfly; note the total lack of wings. The image is from Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boreus_westwoodi_f.jpg 

Frozen lakes may appear incompatible with life.  But "life" begs to differ. Any ice fisher will be happy to list the fish they have caught and the fish are exquisitely adapted to life beneath an icy ceiling. Learn how a quirk of water's physical chemistry makes life possible at 39 degrees. In summer, lakes are stratified into warm layers on top with colder layers below. Frozen winter lakes and ponds are coldest on top and warmer below; this is called inverse stratification.

Water striders or pond skaters use pond surfaces as spider webs.  They prey upon aquatic organisms surfacing to breath, or on terrestrial organisms that end up stuck in the water surface.  This episode explains the photograph I use as the Nature Snippets' logo. Water striders are insects in the order Hemiptera, family Gerridae. The community of organisms living on, and supported by, the surface tension of water bodies, including those organisms hanging beneath the surface tension is called the neuston. 

Migration, hibernation, or actively going about their lives, insects are well adapted to dealing with winter weather.  This episode gets into some of my favorite examples of the exquisite adaptations that insects use to get through the coldest months.