Bloggin' About Boggin'
When one arrives to college, they believe that every step they take is well placed, but as you proceed, you can quickly find yourself drowning in expectations and sinking into low morale. When that happens, the only thing to do is to pick yourself up and move forward. This experience is not exclusive to college alone, in fact, it is synonymous with how Insect Ecology's field trip to the Bear Lake Bog went. We all showed up in the usual gear. Waders, aspirators, butterfly nets, and water nets. When we began to follow Dr. Hoekman onto the bog, none of us knew the full extent of what we were stepping into. See, Bear Lake Bog is a rich freshwater bog, and to convey just how rich, this blog will detail the specifications of bogs, and the types of wildlife we encountered on our trip.
A bog by definition is "wet muddy ground to soft to support a heavy body" and in most cases, the reasoning for that is simple: Sphagnum moss. In a colder environment, things grow slower, and when they die, in the acidic water that sphagnum creates, they decay even slower than that. As time goes on, dead plant tissue (peat) accumulates and builds upon itself. Typically sphagnum moss grows over the peat, it being the next layer to die and add to the depth of the bog. Across the world, bogs can run many yards deep, and are second only to the ice caps at preserving dead mass and slowing decay. This creates a new kind of soil for other plants to root and grow into, which supports incredible biodiversity and offers us a plethora of insects for our collections.
The kind of bog we visited was a quaking bog, named so by its' floating in its entirety. The layer of sphagnum moss and peat is only a few inches from the water level below, so when one person in our group stepped, we all felt the 'ground' beneath shake. A few of us broke through the layer of sphagnum and peat and fell waist-deep into the lake, saved from drowning by even deeper layers of peat and outstretched arms. Since the ground is so unique, we saw a host of new organisms and relationships.
While we were walking, the first thing we noticed was the low shrubbery that grew out of the bog. Then when trekking across, we saw flying insects like never before, and so we readied our nets. But shortly thereafter we discovered that since we sunk into our ankles, we couldn't catch everything we wanted to as quickly. Some of the easiest things to catch were the whirligig beetles and the mosquitoes. The whirligigs because they stood out on the water's surface, the mosquitoes because they swarmed us without conscience. Upon further hunting, we found Red Admiral Butterflies, bumble and honey bees, and for the first time all term, damselflies. Personally, I preferred catching damselflies, and managed to fit four in one jar. Besides just insects and shrubs, we saw lily pads, black spruce trees, and an otter. I pulled on a spruce tree, expecting to uproot it and take it home, but sadly, peat moss makes for a better foundation than you would expect, which made me wonder why all the trees didn't prefer the bog to the forests. All of this taken together, the class trip to the bog opened my eyes to a new dimension of ecology, and I will take the experience home when I'm asked "How was Insect Ecology in Michigan?" by my friends and family.
Works Cited:
Britannica, T. E. (2015, January 19). Bog. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/science/bog-wetland
National Geographic Society. (2012, October 09). Bog. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/bog/
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| Aerial View of a typical bog tallinndaytrip.com |
A bog by definition is "wet muddy ground to soft to support a heavy body" and in most cases, the reasoning for that is simple: Sphagnum moss. In a colder environment, things grow slower, and when they die, in the acidic water that sphagnum creates, they decay even slower than that. As time goes on, dead plant tissue (peat) accumulates and builds upon itself. Typically sphagnum moss grows over the peat, it being the next layer to die and add to the depth of the bog. Across the world, bogs can run many yards deep, and are second only to the ice caps at preserving dead mass and slowing decay. This creates a new kind of soil for other plants to root and grow into, which supports incredible biodiversity and offers us a plethora of insects for our collections.
The kind of bog we visited was a quaking bog, named so by its' floating in its entirety. The layer of sphagnum moss and peat is only a few inches from the water level below, so when one person in our group stepped, we all felt the 'ground' beneath shake. A few of us broke through the layer of sphagnum and peat and fell waist-deep into the lake, saved from drowning by even deeper layers of peat and outstretched arms. Since the ground is so unique, we saw a host of new organisms and relationships.
| Always Wear Waders youtube.com |
While we were walking, the first thing we noticed was the low shrubbery that grew out of the bog. Then when trekking across, we saw flying insects like never before, and so we readied our nets. But shortly thereafter we discovered that since we sunk into our ankles, we couldn't catch everything we wanted to as quickly. Some of the easiest things to catch were the whirligig beetles and the mosquitoes. The whirligigs because they stood out on the water's surface, the mosquitoes because they swarmed us without conscience. Upon further hunting, we found Red Admiral Butterflies, bumble and honey bees, and for the first time all term, damselflies. Personally, I preferred catching damselflies, and managed to fit four in one jar. Besides just insects and shrubs, we saw lily pads, black spruce trees, and an otter. I pulled on a spruce tree, expecting to uproot it and take it home, but sadly, peat moss makes for a better foundation than you would expect, which made me wonder why all the trees didn't prefer the bog to the forests. All of this taken together, the class trip to the bog opened my eyes to a new dimension of ecology, and I will take the experience home when I'm asked "How was Insect Ecology in Michigan?" by my friends and family.
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| A Bland yet Fulfilling scene of an Irish Bog content.yardmap.org |
Works Cited:
Britannica, T. E. (2015, January 19). Bog. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/science/bog-wetland
National Geographic Society. (2012, October 09). Bog. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/bog/
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