Bear Lake Bog

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Bog
Bear Lake Bog, an interesting ecosystem with plenty of organisms living amongst it, is one of the many places that we visited this term. A bog is a floating mass of plant material, mostly sphagnum moss that is present around a lake. Bogs are home to the pitcher plant which, as designed, is a good trap for insects. These are also some organisms that live around the moss. It is accessible to humans, and we, as a class, visited and collected some insects there. We collected both terrestrial and aquatic insects and saw plenty of other vertebrates and invertebrates along the way. 

Bear Lake Bog is located just off the highway in Michigan and down a hill. It surrounds a lake a couple of hundred feet wide and is very unique to walk on. We got into waders, which are water resistant type overalls, and made our adventure out. We took along different nets, such as terrestrial and aquatic, to capture insect specimens for further examination. Getting out onto the bog wasn’t that hard but you could definitely feel the difference in the sphagnum moss as you stepped onto it. The funny part about it was the longer you stayed still the further you sank and that gave reality to the idea that we were walking onto a floating mass. As we walked on we saw several pitcher plants which are show below. These plants are one of the several unique organisms that we encountered. We had also encountered several frogs, such as tree frogs, that were hopping about the surface. As far as insects, there were tons of mosquitos ready to come and suck our blood. That was the most infuriating part of our adventure.
Sarracenia purpurea

Aside from those, we saw several different orders, such as Diptera, Odonata and, Lepidoptera. These orders and some commonly known are flies, dragonflies and damselflies, and butterflies and moths. The insects that I had collected were the common forktail damselfly, mosquitoes, and a butterfly I have not identified yet. There were other families of flies as well as members from the Coleoptera order, such as the whirligig beetle, which are found skirting around on top of the water. Dragonflies had also zoomed back and forth as well as a few swallowtails, whom were flapping by and taunting us at how we couldn’t catch them. Bees, whom belong in the order Hymenoptera, were also found flying around the bog and starling a few of us alone the way. Crane flies were also spotted, and these look similar to a mosquito, just larger. They are not mosquitoes so don’t worry about being bitten. Ants were also seen on top of the bog and studies have been done on flight and colony founding on the bog. I couldn’t find too much on this study however. Bogs are crawling with critters and have a multitude of mini habitats for them to live.  
One of these mini habitats are called pitcher plants and as mentioned before are found growing on bogs. Bogs are wetlands that are made of dead plant materials. The main material is sphagnum moss, which is a genus of 120 species. These mosses can hold 16-26 times more water as their dry weight. The soil of bogs is usually acidic and are peats. (Kannowski, pg. 1) Pitcher plants thrive well in these areas and are often found in wide abundance. Within pitcher plants, there is a small food chain of insect larvae that develop inside of them. They are mosquito larvae and midge larvae. Arthropods will fall into the base of the pitcher plant and be unable to get out. These arthropods are eaten by midge larvae and also create suspended detritus which is then eaten by bacteria and protozoa. The mosquito larvae then eat the microorganism. A study was done at the University of Michigan related to the predation topic of pitcher plants. They had looked at the effects of the presence of predation, involving the larvae of the mosquito, Wyeomyia smithii, and if the prey community would have more species. (Addicott, 1974) They used four different tactics, involving number of natural predators in the field, prey and predator interactions in the field, prey and predator in controlled environment, and lastly prey without predator. Within the pitcher plants, they had found that protozoan communities were drastically dropping with increased numbers of predation within the plant. These food webs circulate within the plant and these are found within the ecosystem of the bog.

Bogs are interesting ecosystems than are formed around lakes. Many grow on the moss and the insects thrive on this. Other animals walk on the bog as well, eating and drinking from the water below. Bogs are beautiful and are full of research topics that would be perfect for studying. I enjoyed getting to walk around on one and look at the organisms that live on the surface.

Sources:
Kannowski, Paul B. "The Flight Activities and Colony-Founding Behavior of Bog Ants in Southern Michigan." N.p., 1958. Web. 2 June 2016.
Addicott, John F. "Predation And Prey Community Structure: An Experimental Study Of The Effect Of Mosquito Larvae On The Protozoan Communities Of Pitcher Plants." Wiley, 1974. Web. 2 June 2016.
"Sphagnum." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Apr. 2016. Web. 02 June 2016.

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