26
April 2014
Valley Voice
‘Boat Almanac
Winter’s Secrets
bistro c.v.
By Karen Vail
and an impressive lower jaw armed with long incisors. These incisors can continue to grow for the life of the animal, like all rodent incisors, and the lower incisors can grow .04 inches each day. If that rate was continuous over the year, and not constantly worn down by all the work of the gopher, the lower incisor would grow 14 inches a year!
www.bistrocv.com
New TURBO INTERNET PLANS From ZIRKEL Wireless
970-871-8500 www.zirkelwireless.com Mild Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
You don’t have to Leave to breathe
Steamboat Hyperbaric
970.439.1499 info@steamboathyperbaric.com www.steamboathyperbaric.com
Compost Your Food Waste!
Help Contribute to Locally Produced TwinGro Compost Within Steamboat Springs City limits
Single Family & MultiFamily
REGIONAL LARGE-SCALE COMPOSTING FACILITY Organic Waste Pick-up
Call to sign up
970-879-6985 . www.twinenviro.com
We should call May the “month of exposing winter’s secrets.” The least palatable of winter’s secrets, of course, is all the dog poop that people have been negligent in picking up all winter. But that is not a story for the Nature Almanac (although we could argue about all the damage that dog poop does to our local waterways with the pathogens and medications that are flushed into the water with spring runoff). The winter’s secrets I am thinking of have to do with all the unseen activity that is exposed in spring as the snow melts. One that always befuddles people is the brown snake-like lines of soil flowing along the ground, over rocks and branches, with no seeming hole or tunnel. These are “eskers” created by our shy and fossorial (living most of their life underground) Northern pocket gophers (Thomomys talpoides). Let’s learn a little about these small animals first, and then look at how they create this unique artwork. Northern pocket gophers are like the rototillers of nature. It is estimated that one individual can turn over 16 tons of soil every year! In a natural system this means bringing up valuable mineral components of the soil and making them available to plant roots, aerating the soil and increasing porosity in soils. This digging is done to gather succulent plant roots, their main food source. They will also occasionally come above ground to gather plants. We might think pocket gophers mean the death of plants when they enter an area, but research has shown that because of the tilling of the soil and increased porosity and water holding capacity, plants actually thrive at the edges of newly dug gopher areas. These animals are highly adapted for their life mostly underground. Their sausage-shaped body has reduced eyes and ears, both of which are little used underground. Their lax fur allows movement both forward and backward, and their short, almost hairless tail has many nerves, muscles and blood vessels. The gophers move backwards almost as readily as forwards, and their tails probably provide important sensory information. They can close their lips behind their front incisors so they can loosen dirt or collect roots without filling their mouth with dirt. The name “pocket gopher” comes from a nifty fur-lined cheek pouch from their mouth back to their shoulder which they stuff with food to transport. The cheek pouches can be turned inside out. Since they are the ultimate burrower, they have the ultimate “shovels” with heavy, stout claws
For those who live here and for those who wish they did.
OK, on to the “eskers.” To dig their tunnels, pocket gophers push the loosened soil back under their body in the tunnel, then further with the hind feet, then finally they push the soil out of the tunnel to the surface using their head and forefeet. In summer these mounds are nice little rounded mounds. But in the winter they must first create tunnels in the snow where they push their underground diggings into as they cannot simply push it onto the surface. These sinuous compact soil eskers are then visible after the snow melts in spring. Our other winter’s secret has been growing quietly under the snow, along our lawns and meadows, and the branches of young conifer trees and other plants as a white, gray or pink lacey mat. These are the mycelium, the “body,” so to speak, of a fungus known as snow mold. There are parasitic snow molds; those that actually consume the plant materials they grow on and damage them. We find these in our lawns as white or pink round patches as the snow melts, and as ugly, gooey brown branches toward the base of young conifer trees. There is also a non-parasitic snow mold that, if you catch it just right as the snow melts, is a beautiful white lacey blanket across meadows and forest floors. It will only last a couple of days without snow protection. Saprophytic snow molds feed on already dead material, so are not as economically important as the parasitic snow molds. They have been mostly overlooked until researchers started looking at what is going on under the snow those last couple of months when the snow is on the ground. These snow molds put on a burst of growth as the snowpack begins its thawing process before spring truly erupts. So, under the snow, as the soil-snow interface is becoming saturated with melted snow, this lacey growth of hyphae is growing by leaps and bounds. Scientists from Colorado University found in a research study in 2008 that this increased microbial activity in a couple month period contributed significantly to CO2 increases in the area. They are continuing to study how global CO2 dynamics will change as global warming changes both the duration and depth of snowpacks at our higher elevations. I also have to talk about the GREEN stuff coming up, as this is the optimal time for collecting spring greens. Oh boy, here come the glacier lily flowers and leaves (in moderation!), the dandelion greens for my soup, the sweet anise in my salad and many other tasty delicacies. If you would like to learn more and help collect these goodies for Yampatika’s Wild Edible Feast coming up Thursday, May 29th, contact Morgan at Yampatika at 871-9151. Keep an eye open for those beautiful snow molds and pocket gopher eskers. We’ll see you out on the trails!