When I visited the wood I collected some of the damp leaf litter and set up a home made Tullgren Funnel. This is a simple way of finding what small invertebrates are nestling in the newly fallen leaves.
As you can see, all that is required is a plastic funnel, an old jam jar and a lamp. You then leave the apparatus set up or a few days and see what bugs and beasties emerge from the leaves and fall through into the jam jar...simples :-).
A spent an hour this morning in the kitchen, with my microscope and hand lens, examining the findings.
What was easy to see straight away was a selection of different fungi on the surface of some of the leaves. These fungi are helping to break down the structure of the leaf and so recycle all the nutrients back into the woodland soil.
There were also a number of small soil invertebrates, beetle larvae, spiders etc which unfortunately were too small for me to photograph. However if you are interested in what can be found in the soil you may wish to check out this site http://abugblog.blogspot.co.uk/.
I also found a number of different eggs on the surface of the leaves, deposited by various invertebrates, particularly slug species.
At the bottom of the jam jar was a small amount of liquid, rain from the damp leaves, which had dripped through from surface of the leaves. Within this water I was amazed to find a number of transparent nematode worms, wiggling about in the liquid.
Ok, I accept this is not everyone's ideal way of spending a Sunday morning, but I was interested to find out what could be found amongst the woodland leaf litter in winter. As you can see from this very simple and basic investigation, there is life to be found, in what at first sight might seem of little value - dead leaves. But this is the very beginning of recycling the nutrients and carbon stored in last years tree growth. Those fallen leaves spent 6 - 7 months acting as solar panels, collecting the sun's power and converting it into food, which a lot of other life within Whetsted Wood will rely upon in 2016.
It seemed appropriate that if I am to investigate what wildlife can be found within Paddock Wood in 2016 I needed to start at the very beginning and illustrate how life is continually recycling the sun's powers and other elements found within the soil and subsoil of this small part of planet Earth.
Whilst writing this blog, I am investigating the natural history & wildlife in Paddock Wood for the period of time that it takes the Earth to make one complete revolution around the Sun, but in reality life is a continuous, ever changing event, started 3.5 billion years ago and even in a small inconspicuous place like Paddock Wood there is much to investigate. much to find out about and much to celebrate and enjoy, even hunting amongst fallen leaf litter, for the very smallest of creatures, which most of us never usually see.
To put it into even greater perspective, there are more bacteria in one teaspoon of woodland soil, than people on this planet and because of the limitations of resources I have available, I wasn't even able to see any bacteria in the small collection of leaves I bought back from Whetsted Wood, only creatures that live off and interact more directly with that unseen bacteria, than we do.
But at least it's a start ...... :-).
No comments:
Post a Comment