 Now, shall I take it away? All right. Well, thanks everybody for joining me today. I am gonna be talking about vernal pools and I'm just gonna share my screen here. There we go. Can everybody see that now? Yes. Great. So I'm gonna be talking about vernal pool ecology and conservation. One of my favorite topics. I've spent quite a bit of time kicking around in vernal pools and I find them just a delightful place to spend time and there's so much to learn and there's so much to see and they're accessible to people of all ages. So first of all, let's just start by talking about what is a vernal pool? Vernal pools are temporary, typically temporary bodies of water that fill up with water in the fall. They hold water over the winter and the spring but then come mid to late summer, they dry up like you see with the photo on the right. And if you're walking through the woods and you find one of these dried up spots, you might not realize that, hey, that's actually a vernal pool. And they come in lots of different sizes and shapes and this is sort of a typical vernal pool that is in the middle of a softwood forest where the water is relatively, it's relatively open in the middle. There are down logs, lots of shrubs around the pool but we also have these isolated little pools all throughout southern and central Maine that are, they fill, underlain with bedrock but then they're, they fill with water and again dry up during the summer these should be in a hardwood forest. And then here's just another view of one where you might have a little more shrubs that are growing in and around the pool. This one is already starting to dry down but it's not totally dry yet. And then they can also occur in floodplains along rivers where sometimes are old oxbows that are associated with river floodplains where the water fills in temporarily but then again dries down later in the season. Or they can be these deep little pockets of water that are held within forested wetlands where you have this nice hammock and hollow kind of topography and occasionally you have a place where the water stays there through the beginning of the summer season long enough to provide green habitat for the animals that breed there. This is another, not just another view of a pool surrounded by hardwood trees and some of the trees are actually in the water for part of the year and then out of the water for part of the year. And here's what it looks like when it's all dried up. That same photo and just go back again. So here's what it looks like when it's full of water and here's what it looks like when it's all dried up. This is another view of, in northern part of the state we sometimes have these pools that are as big as two acres in size that are found in the landscape. And again, they fill with water early in the season and then dry down and sometimes you get this nice mat of mosses and grasses that fill in the area after it dries down. Well, so what's special about vernal pools? What makes them unique? First of all, they don't have any fish in them. And that is really important for the amphibians that breed there because that means that the fish aren't eating the eggs or the young salamanders and frogs. And they also typically don't have frogs that need permanent water like our bullfrogs and green frogs both of which are actually quite predatory on other amphibians that might breed in these vernal pools. And the things that are again kind of unique to these vernal pools is that they are ephemeral meaning they are stood the water in them only stays for part of the year. They're typically small, maybe a 10th of an acre to a half an acre at best. And they don't have a permanent inlet or outlet in other words aren't streams that are feeding into these pools or leaving the pools. So they're just this big pile of water sitting on top of the forest floor. And then there's no breeding fish, green frogs or bullfrogs. So all of those characteristics create this very specialized breeding habitat for a number of our wildlife species. The first of which is fairy shrimp. This is a magnified view of a fairy shrimp. It's just like a larger shrimp only tiny and they have quite a unique life cycle here in our vernal pools. There's only a few of our vernal pools that have fairy shrimp in them but you'll see them swimming on their side and moving about and they usually just are in the pools for about six weeks and then they lay their eggs and they disappear again. And then we have our wood frogs which I'm sure most of you are familiar with their call. These are frogs that come out first thing in the spring and they, I will never forget the first time I learned about wood frogs. I was riding my bike on the bike path from old town into the campus of the University of Maine and Orano. And there was this little pool of water by the side of the trail. And I stopped and I heard this quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack sound. I'm looking around for the ducks, some mallards or black ducks or wood ducks or something. Couldn't find them, couldn't find them. Finally asked somebody at the, in the wildlife department what's making all that noise? And it turned out to be wood frogs. So wood frogs sometimes sound like ducks but they all come out at the same time and breed together in these vernal pools. And then we have both spotted salamanders. These are fairly large salamanders that have a dark background with bright yellow spots on them. And blue spotted salamanders, which are smaller, little bit smaller than the spotted salamanders. And there's quite a bit of genetic variation among them but this is a typical blue spotted salamander you might find in Maine. The yellow, the spotted salamanders are much more common than the blue spotted salamanders. And they have, these three or four species have really unique life cycles. So they all congregate in the pools early in the spring to lay their eggs but then the adults leave the pools. And for the wood frogs, they typically go from the pool here. Oops, sorry, I didn't mean to do that. They typically go from the pool over to another wetland where they hang out during the summer. They like that moist ground that they are attracted to. And then come fall, they will actually move from out of the wetland could be a forested wetland or some other kind of wetland. They move from that wetland up into upland forest habitat where they overwinter. And I'll show you some amazing photos of what they look like when they're overwintering in a bit. The spotted salamanders and blue spotted salamanders all go to the pool to breed, to lay their eggs. And then they leave the pool and spend the rest of the year in these upland habitats. They like sort of drier conditions and they will use small mammal tunnels underground to find their food and hang out during the rest of the year. So sometimes they're referred to as mole salamanders, M-O-L-E, just like moles that climb under the ground. And if we look a little more closely at their movements, what we find is that the juveniles act a little bit different than the adults. So as I said, both the wood frogs and the salamander, blue spotted salamanders spend the winter in these upland forests that you see up here. And then they go back to the pool where they lay their eggs. Once those eggs hatch and the young mature, then they leave the pool and the juveniles disperse. Quite a bit, they can disperse quite a bit farther than the adults that are hanging out around the pool. And they will sometimes disperse to an entirely different pool so that you mix up the genetic variability among the different species or to other uplands where they're searching for new places to breed. Some of them also come back to the pool where they were hatched from. And then in the summer, again, these wood frogs like to hang out in these forested wetlands that are nice and damp for them. This is what the pool looks like in winter. Doesn't that look refreshing right about now? That it is so hot today. They're covered with snow, there's ice under them. And unlike some of our other frogs and turtles, they don't burrow down into the amphibians that breed in these pools, do not burrow down underneath the mud and wait there. Instead, wood frogs turn into frogsicles. They literally freeze solid during the wintertime. They create their own antifreeze that allows the liquid that is between the cells to freeze, but the cells themselves don't freeze. But if you were to uncover one of these guys that's hanging out in the wintertime, this is what it would look like. They are the only frog that can do this. It's quite amazing. That's also why they're the only frog that breeds all that and the mink frog that breeds so far north. They breed way up into Canada, where nobody else, not no other amphibians are breeding. Then come spring rains. You start getting a bunch of water that lays on top of the ice. The ice starts melting a little bit and the rains come and both the spotted salamanders, the blue spout salamanders and the wood frogs all emerge from their winter sites and they start moving towards the vernal pools. Sometimes they all move at the same time and we call that big night. When it's the first warm rain and by warm, I'm talking about maybe 40, 45 degrees. And that triggers a response from the wood frogs and the salamanders to start moving. And they will get to the edge of the vernal pool when there's still ice on the pool, but they'll find those spots that are warmed by the sun where they can start gathering together and then mating and laying their eggs. This is what it, this you're actually looking through the ice now at a bunch of spotted salamanders that have come to the pool. The males usually arrive first and then the females afterwards. And the males actually lay these little packets of sperm on the bottom of the pond or the pool. And then the females come in and pick up those packets of sperm. They fertilize the eggs and then they lay their eggs. Sometimes you can see this mass of salamanders, all what we call big, it's a big Congress. They're all there together and moving around each other and bring your headlamp out and watch them at night. It's quite exciting, quite dramatic. And this is what the female usually finds some sort of twig or branch to lay their eggs on, to attach their eggs on. And that's where they will mature them over the next month or so. For the wood frogs, the wood frogs are what we call explosive breeders. They all show up at the pool at the same time. They're there for maybe five days to two weeks, that's it. And the males are calling, they're trying to attract the females. The females then select the male that they're gonna mate with. And if you look closely, you'll see there are actually four legs back here. So the male is actually a little bit smaller than the female and sits on top of the female while the female lays her eggs and she fertilizes the eggs as they are being laid. And then here are some other egg masses over here to the right. One large mass of eggs for each female, they can lay up to 2000 eggs in one egg mass. And here's a great photo of what they look like when they're just kind of hanging out resting in the pool. And this is what vernal pool researchers look like when they're hanging out in the pool. So this is one of a former graduate student, Don, who spent quite a bit of time in the pools trying to conduct research on who lives here, what are they doing, where are they going? And because of all the research that's been done through the University of Maine in Orno, we have a tremendous amount of information about just how special these vernal pools are. One of the things they've been able to do is attach little radio tags to the frogs and salamanders. So this is a little tag that just goes around the hips on the frog and then you can track their movement. It's only recently that we've been able to have radio tags like this that are small enough to attach to something like a wood frog. But look at what we've been able to learn by doing that. This is a map, this is not in Maine, but this is a map of each different color represents a different individual that was tagged. They all laid their eggs in this vernal pool right here in this patch of forest. And you can see that surprisingly, most of them have found a way to move through this subdivision across the roads and over to this little patch of forest here where they are hanging out then during the rest of the summer. There's one sort of stray one over here. I'm not sure what that one's doing, but, and then this one that found a different patch of forest to hang out in, but they move quite a ways. And here's a similar map for the spotted salamander. And what you can see here is that here's the vernal pool. Once they get to the houses along the road, most of them stop short of moving through those areas. So there, most of them have stopped as soon as they get to those developed areas. So they much prefer being in the forest. And here's another interesting symbol of movement. This was from wood frogs that were tagged in a little pool up off the Joe Mary road in Northern Maine. And what you can see here is that most of them are actually moving up the slopes during the summertime. And they're hanging out at the base of these large glacial erratics, big rocks that have been left there by the glaciers. And they, they hang out in the moss and the other vegetation, excuse me, that is found on those big rocks. And it's also on North facing slope where it tends to be a little bit cooler than on the South facing slope. A few of them have found their way up here to loom pond, but most of them are on this North facing cooler slope. And can you explain how they actually go about tagging them? It's this little, if you see here, that while they catch them in pit traps, so pit traps are little, our buckets, maybe five gallon or buckets that you actually hide in the ground. And as the individuals are moving either to the vernal pool or away from the vernal pool, they'll come across these pit traps and fall down into the pit traps. It doesn't hurt them, they stay alive, but they can't get back out. And so then they can take them out of that pit trap and put these little tags on them and release them again. So in the fall, the salamanders and frogs start moving around again. They leave the pool. A lot of times the pools fill back up with water in fall. It just, it's groundwater that feeds these. And then here's where our salamanders are hanging out. They like these little holes that have been created by mice or voles or molds. And that's where they tend to be found. And then our wood frogs burrow right down into the leaf litter, the leaves that are on the forest floor. I don't know if you can see, this is the frog right here, sort of hiding under the leaf litter. And that's where they'll hang out for the fall and winter. And interestingly enough, through additional research, they've been able to determine that the places where the wood frogs over winter tend to be those places that are more open and collect more snow than underneath the dense canopy of the forest. Those are also the places that tend to thaw earliest in the springtime so that then they can move back to their row pools to breed. And so now I'm gonna switch a little bit and talk about how are we conserving these pools? What can we do to help protect all these wonderful critters? And so current regulations are twofold. Both the federal government and the state government have certain regulations that encourage some protection around important vernal pools. And the feds have an area of concern that goes out to about 750 feet from the pool itself, which just means that if there's gonna be a development in or around that vernal pool, you try to cite it in a way that minimizes the impact to both the pool and then also the forest around the pool. And at the state level, if there is a significant vernal pool, and I'll bet you know what that is in a minute, the, there's a 250 foot area around the pool that it needs to be reviewed under a permit application to determine where best to do any sort of development or if there shouldn't be any development, but that almost never happens. And significant vernal pools in Maine are defined as pools where you have at least 40 egg masses of wood frogs and or 20 egg masses of spotted salamanders and or 10 egg masses of wood spotted salamanders. So in order to determine that, you really need to get out there in the spring and actually count the egg masses. You'll notice that the wood frog egg masses are very large. As I mentioned, they can be up to 2000 eggs in one mass. The spotted salamanders don't lay as many eggs and their egg masses are covered in this sort of jelly covering that makes them really harder for other predators, insects and whatnot to feed on. And then the blue spotted salamander egg masses tend to be a little more stringy than the others and even smaller numbers. Fairy shrimp only show up in about 20% of all of our pools. So they're even harder to find, but they are another, if they occur at all, then that pool is considered a significant vernal pool as well. But unfortunately, our frogs and salamanders don't know what the law is and they don't follow the law. They move way beyond that 250 foot area that is designated as a review area under permit. We know that they travel up to 3000 feet for wood frogs, 1200 about 1200 feet for the blue spotted and around 800 feet for spotted salamanders. So they're moving quite a bit more than the regulations take into account. So why should we conserve vernal pools? In addition to being really important breeding habitat for the species that I've already talked about, these vernal pools provide a tremendous amount of food for many other species of wildlife. So I'm gonna flip through some, well, let me just show you here. So one of the things we need to think about is what role these vernal pools play across the landscape. And as I mentioned, they often fill up with water in the fall and then they eventually dry down in the summer, but they're recharged by underground water flow that moves one to another and across the landscape. So we really need to be thinking about how we can conserve the entire system, not just the pool basin itself. And what we've found through lots of camera work and other studies is that there's all these different species that are listed here on the right that feed on either the eggs, the young or the adults. And they'll feed on the tadpoles, they'll feed on the emerging young juveniles, they'll feed on other insects in there. And each of the species that is in yellow are species that are also hunted by people. So we know that these are a super important food source for many of those species. So let's look a minute at who else? Well, I mean, look at that. There's all these eggs that have been laid in the pool, some of which now are already starting to dry up because the pool has dropped, the water level has dropped down, but that is, we all eat eggs, right? We eat eggs from chickens or ducks or whatever because they're a great source of protein. This is a huge source of protein for many species and many other species. Not all of them hatch, not all of them survive. And so they can be food for other critters. So I'm gonna run through now a series of photos that were taken by a remote camera at different vernal pools. They'll show you just how many different species visit and use these pools. And it might be fun, I'm gonna go kind of fast. So for each photo, try to write in the chat what you see. Just what's the species that you notice there? Okay, just stop here for a minute. What did, did we get any answers in the chat? I can't hear you. Sally, I can read it. Duck, mallard, deer, bear, fox, mink, bobcat, lynx, heron, raccoon, I may have missed some. Yeah, so isn't that, that's quite surprising, right? I mean, there are so many different animals that come into these vernal pools looking for food, including the owl, that's sort of a new thing we've seen. I actually saw this spring myself, I saw a barred owl sitting on a limb right up above a vernal pool after the eggs had already been laid and the adults were still in there and could tell that that owl was ready to go hunting in that pool. So that was, that was a surprise. So remember I mentioned that they use pit traps to collect the frogs and salamanders before they take them. This is a bucket load of frogs and salamanders that were caught in one of these pit traps that were leaving the pool after they had laid their eggs. And you can see just how many there are. So in addition to the species that were found, you saw in the cameras, we also have red-tailed hawks. We have snakes that are feeding on the frogs and the salamanders. We have blandings and spotted turtles that hang out in vernal pools during the summertime and they especially like to stay there. Actually in the, after the pool dries down, they'll also, what's called estivated, it's sort of like a summer hibernation. They'll hang out in those pools during the summer when they're in that late summer, when they're inactive and they move from one pool to another pool both to feed and to stay and to be in that water. So then we have a challenge in terms of people in pools, somewhat of a challenge you can see in this photo that sometimes people like to build their houses really close to the vernal pool. And that can be okay as long as the pool is not entirely surrounded by houses. And if the forest around the pool is maintained because you need the leaves that are dropping into the pool, you need the shade in the pool to keep it cool and sometimes the sticks and limbs that are in the pool for the amphibians to lay their eggs on. So we can get along together, we just need to be thoughtful about how we do that. And we know that roads can be particularly perilous to our breeding amphibians. The largest amount of mortality for wildlife happens near wetlands, including vernal pools. And of course people are dying at night, it's raining, it's always raining when the amphibians are moving to or from the pool. And so it's hard for people to see them. We also know that salt on the roads can cause this bloating to occur in wood frogs that interferes with their ability to move and potentially even to reproduce. I've seen this very thing and there's a great vernal pool right down the road for me. And we've found a lot of these bloated wood frogs in the last few years and just this year, for the first time, somebody finally was able to answer the question of what's causing that. So one thing that we can do is talk to the Public Works Department and say, hey, can that be a low salt or no salt area because it's causing problems. Another thing that we worry about is over time, if there's a lot of development in between all the pools, that makes it just a lot harder for the amphibians to move around. And does that mean that these pools will eventually become empty of life? So there's a lot of things that we can do though to both help vernal pools and still get along with them. A number of years ago in 2011, we completed working with these 10 different towns around Maine where we trained volunteers to go out and survey vernal pools in their communities. Some of the towns were able to survey basically every single vernal pool in the community, others surveyed just part of them, trying to determine which ones were the most important in terms of the number of amphibian egg masses that were there. So here's a training. We did a lot of training, both indoors and outdoors with folks, and we had people of all ages, families, adults, retired folks, kids. They loved going out and collecting the data. And then those towns were able to use that data to bring it into reviews when there were new subdivisions coming up or whatever it might be. And then we also, as I mentioned, road crossing is really dangerous for folks. And so again, with this pool right down the road from my house, the local land trust works together with the town every year to help the amphibians cross the road safely. So sometimes we have as many as 70 people that are out there at one time and the police actually close off the road temporarily for big night while we have all these families and folks that come out and help move the amphibians safely across the road. So yeah. Sharon Eaton says I have a friend in mass who helps critters cross the road at night. Yes. Are there any programs in May? There is. There's actually a relatively new program that's been created. This is something we've been doing with our local land trust for quite a few years, but now as part of the up pools and people program, which I'll show you in a minute, there's a whole section in there on big night and you can get all kinds of information there about how to help organize and host one of these big night events in your community. It's a lot of fun. And we also, as part of that work to provide additional information for volunteers. This was a great display at our local library where people could come and read all about the different amphibians and whatnot that live in these rental pools. And then we also gave awards out to people who came out through a drawing. So it's a local artist, Michael Boardman, who creates wonderful work and he created these new identification sheets and also a wonderful frog and salamander t-shirts. These are kids and these are adults. And then we know that we've been working with local land trust, with the conservation, we've worked with the community to create conservation subdivisions that will recognize the important rental pool and then work around that to create the rest of the subdivision. And we know that community forests also play a really important role in protecting some of these rental pools. And then landowners can really help. Private landowners, individual landowners in addition to those community folks can help. We're in the process of completing a stewardship award program. That just means you've agreed to help protect this rental pool any way that you can. And we created these wonderful signs that if you agree to do certain kinds of behaviors around your rental pool, then you can get this award and display the sign on your property. So we're kind of excited about that. And it's really pretty straightforward. Basically, you wanna keep disturbance out of the rental pool itself. Again, this is where the, this is a spotted salamander egg mass. This is what the juveniles look like when they're swimming around after they hatch. This is what the wood frog egg masses look like. And this is what the tadpoles look like when they're swimming around after they hatch. And sometimes you can come to one of these rental pools and it will just be teeming with all these tadpoles. And then in the first 100 feet around the pool where we know a lot of the adults spend their time when they're not breeding, this is the place where the juveniles will emerge from the pool. You can see these are all little tiny frogs that have just hatched that have left the pool. And then this is an adult and a small salamander that's left the pool as well. So be thinking about things like try to keep roads and driveways out of those areas if you can. And if there are any detention basins that are gonna be developed, try to keep those out of the envelope as well because they'll get trapped in those areas thinking it might be a rental pool when it actually isn't. And then a little bit further out, out to 750 feet. Again, this is where our adults are moving and juveniles are moving. Try to cluster development, locate housing away from the vernal pool. Keep the forest canopy intact at least 75% of that area. Try to control erosion and use silk fencing to exclude amphibians from the construction site and then eliminate or minimize the use of pesticides. We know those can be really problematic because amphibian skin is very porous so they absorb all that stuff. And if anybody's working in the woods if you're doing active harvesting we also have a series of recommendations for that that are similar but a little bit different to the recommendations for places where there are houses. No disturbance in the vernal pool in that first hundred feet around the vernal pool limit your harvest, keep a 75% canopy cover. So you've got that shade and woody material that comes into the pool. Harvest only when the soil is dry or frozen. We try to keep harvesting outside of the breeding season. And then when you go out to that 750 feet or 400 feet actually, 400 feet then also try to some harvesting is fine. Just try to keep at least 50% canopy cover and maintain that shade as well. Because remember these animals aren't just living in the pool. They actually spend over 90% of their time in the forest around the pool. Towns can also help. There's a new program that the state and the feds work together to create called the S.A.M.P. the area management plan. S.A.M.P. something, I forget what it is, something area management plan. Basically the idea is that if you have an area that you're trying to target growth if they're, and I don't know why towns down East may not even have this but certainly in this part of the state a lot of towns have designated certain areas for more dense development where you have a growth area. Let's say there's a pool, we're in a pool in the middle of that designated growth area but you wanna use it for housing or other commercial activity then if you find a landowner in the rural part of town that has some rural pools on their property and is willing to protect those the folks who wanna develop here basically put up money to help protect the land over here. So we're trying to protect a larger landscape where these rental pools can thrive over time. And then we have lots of rental pool information and guidelines if you wanna learn anything more about rental pools that I've just touched on today. There's this wonderful fact sheet that describes significant wildlife or significant rental pools. We have a guide for municipal folks on how to identify and protect rental pools. These are best development practices that are specifically designed for folks that are building subdivisions or whatnot and then these forestry habitat management guidelines. We also have some wonderful rental pool identification aids. You saw part of this poster before but it's two-sided just eight and a half by 11 that and all the animals are to scale. So the bullfrog for example is a lot bigger than the spring peeper. But these are laminated and they're really great tools. And then there are also these wonderful pocket ID cards that are on a ring and you can take them out into the field with you and use them to identify whatever you find. All of this stuff is available through our main Audubon website but it's also our website links to this of pools and people site that the University of Maine houses and there are many ways to stay in touch with that program. So if you want any more information here's where you can find it at the main Audubon website and search for rental pools on the of pools and people website. And if anybody has follow up questions for me you can reach me either by email or by phone. So that is all I have for slides and I'm happy to take any questions if there are any and I will stop sharing. People should feel free to unmute now and ask your question. Did I get you excited about going to visit a vernal pool? There's a lot happening there. Get your little rubber boots out in your raincoat and your head lamp and have a great time. Sally and Jim here, I put a question in the chat but I'll just try and summarize it. First of all, the graphics on your presentation were wonderful, the photographs, the support. So I was struck by that map of the radio tagged frogs on the move and so they have seemed to have a very strong sense of direction. They do. From the pool to the forest across backyards and streets and so forth. My question is they move as individuals or they move as a group. How do they do, I would just call it geography. How do they have a sense of place where they are and where they're going? We don't really know the answer to that yet. We don't know whether, like with birds, we know they use the stars, then we know they respond to magnetic directions. We don't really know what these frogs and salamanders are using for their to direct them but they do have a very strong sense of direction you're right. And they will typically return to the same pool every year, year after year. They travel individually, they don't follow one another. As you saw even in the tags of all the different colors for the wig frogs, each one took a little bit different pathway but they definitely have that general direction from the pool to the forest where they're headed or to the wetland. Thank you. I will give credit for the slides to my colleague, Dr. Aram Calhoun. She's at the University of Maine in Orano and we have, two of us have worked together for many years on Verna Pool Conservation. She does all the research stuff. I do more of the outreach and education work but I credit her and her colleagues and graduate students with most of the graphics. I put a few together as well. Anybody else have any questions? If not, we'll stop the recording.