Forensic analyses of dead grasses

My plant community ecology class had another field trip today. Gotta love the field trips! But that was an earlier post, from an earlier field trip =)...

Today we went to a vernal pool research station in the Central Valley, not too far from Davis. Vernal pools are supposed to be spectacular in season. I've never seen one before, and arguably, I still haven't. Vernal pools are a scattered and special ecosystem to California, and unfortunately, most of them have been converted to agricultural practices. Basically, they're ephemeral ponds in the valley that result from California's Mediterranean type climate. They fill up in the winter rains, bloom incredibly in the spring, and dry up throughout the summer, ensuring that everything is dead and crusty for our field trip in the Fall =). Like desert lakes with no outlet, they tend to be alkaline, with high salt concentrations (you can taste my shoes if you want proof!). Since these are pretty harsh conditions, they've managed to be pretty resistant to invasions by exotic species (all right!). There's your California ecosystems lesson for the day =).

So what were we doing in this vernal pool? Nested subplot sampling! Whoo-hoo. My group sampled 22 plots along a 100 m transect, amounting to 352 sq. m that we scoured for species. I think I got pretty good at identifying the species. I just had one problem... I could never remember a couple of the names, or at least not how to pronounce them. My favorite plant was "woolly marbles," or as I refered to it "fuzzy marbles" (so named because of its fuzzy, spherical seed heads). Don't ask me what the scientific name is... It was pretty fun, playing in the field, hanging out with people, goofing around. Oh yeah. And now I'm back in the real world and have to do work. Such a painful dual reality for field ecologists...