Louie's Pond: Night and Day

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            Nets over our shoulders, bottles falling out of our pockets, aspirators around our necks, we were ready to venture to the far away wilderness of the Au Sable trail and search for insects around Louie’s Pond. Unbeknownst to us, a few years ago, Louie’s Pond was completely dry! Yet today it was full, the air was humid, yet fairly pleasant at 81°F. It was 2 PM on May 23rd, and the mosquitoes were biting our ankles and temples. The first catch of the day was a large dragonfly in a net. Next, we found a beetle on a leaf, which we aspirated. Suddenly another beetle darted across the leaf litter, which we skillfully plucked off its path using tweezers. Of course, the highlight of my day was the four garter snake sightings we had while tromping around the pond and trails. Although it may not seem relevant, snakes can be insect predators, especially when higher trophic level animal populations are dwindling, such as during a stressed year in a drought or during habitat destruction. However, garter snakes impact insects because their primary prey is rodents, fish, or small amphibians, which are primary insect predators (Hamilton 1951). Upon returning from this day in the field, we ensured that each beetle was placed in the freezer and the dragonfly was carefully transferred to a kill-jar. 
Picture by Rebekah Johnson
            Cherry and maple leaves covered in galls were found on the path parallel to Louie’s Pond. We dissected the galls in order to examine their inner contents: a few clear small larva squirming around in the plant’s immune response. One study found that insects who were found in galls in xeric habitats had a lower mortality rate than those found in mesic environments. There was a higher rate of parasitism as well as fungal diseases in the galls found in the mesic habitats compared to those found in xeric habitats (Fernandes and Price 1992). Although we saw many galls near Louie’s Pond and in other places, they seem like such a naturally protective environment, so we could have expected to see even more. However, this study suggests that in a place like Michigan, which is largely mesic, gall-forming may not be as invulnerable as those in environments like the desert. 
http://natureisoutthere.blogspot.com/2010/05/well-gall-eeee.html
            Another study investigated the effect of crude oils on local insect population in tundra thaw ponds. Essential insects such as the caddis flies and the stoneflies were seen to decrease when crude oil levels reached 10 l/m2 (Mozely and Butler 1978). Other insects populations were also negatively affected by the addition of crude oil to their environments. Although Louie’s Pond is not a tundra thaw pond, it can be inferred that there could be similar effects at Louie's, especially in a state like Michigan where crude oil drilling is common and thus pollution or runoff could be expected to be high (such as what happened during the Kalamazoo River Oil Spill). For the stoneflies and caddis flies, even after seven years following a crude oil spill in a tundra thaw pond, there was no recovery seen (Mozely and Butler 1978).
            The next time our team hiked this very same trail, it was a completely different habitat because this time it was pitch black. The night had transformed the environment; different insects, mammals, and birds were crawling and inhabiting the same path on the same trees, leaves, soil, and brush. This time ground beetles were creeping about, moths flew every which way, a few mosquitoes swooped in for a bloodmeal, and June bugs littered the forest floor. But there was a lack of buzzing wasps, racing ants, and darting damselflies and dragonflies. Luckily, this ensures that these creatures can utilize the same environment and resources without outcompeting due to various factors: different predators and prey populations present, different weather, dissimilar sensory apparatuses as the day creatures because of the lack of light, different adaptations for nighttime living. One study illustrated that nocturnal and diurnal insects pollinated milkweed at differing levels. The flowers who were pollinated solely by diurnal pollinators (eg: bumblebees) matured eight times faster than those with only nocturnal pollinators such as moths. However, flowers made nectar at a rate four times faster during the night (Morse and Fritz 1983). Thus, both diurnal and nocturnal pollinators are essential to the health of the habitat and the organisms in it. Nocturnal and diurnal creatures both have elemental roles to play that are only established because of God’s wisdom in creating night as well as day.
            “Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also… and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. ” (Genesis 1:14-19). God made time, the sun, and the moon in order to create a cyclical harmony that helps each creature and living thing on this planet: to lower competition, to allow for greater diversity of the animals and plants that react to light and darkness differently, to act as a kind of “Sabbath” so that the earth can rest. The sun triggers rest for a group of creatures, just as the moon signals resting time for humans and many of the insects we commonly found when searching during the day. It was incredible experiencing the same place transform so completely, to an almost unrecognizable form, and know that God can use even the exact same habitat for such different purposes.
Photo by Rebekah Johnson

1) Fernandes, G. Wilson, and Peter W. Price. "The Adaptive Significance of Insect Gall                                   Distribution: Survivorship of Species in Xeric and Mesic Habitats." Oecologia 90.1 (1992):                 14-20
2) Hamilton, W. J. "The Food and Feeding Behavior of the Garter Snake in New York State." The                   American Midland Naturalist 46.2 (1951): 385-390. 
3) Morse, Douglass H., and Robert S. Fritz. "Contributions of Diurnal and Nocturnal Insects to the                  Pollination of Common Milkweed (Asclepias Syriaca L.) in a Pollen-limited                                          System." Oecologia 60.2 (1983): 190-197. 

4) Mozley, Samuel C., and Malcolm G. Butler. "Effects of Crude Oil on Aquatic Insects of Tundra                    Ponds." Arctic 31.3 (1978): 229-241.

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