2024 Limestone Log 5 (Moss and Humpbacks)
Humpback photo by Amaya Black
Weeks 9 and 10 at East Limestone Island have passed by, with just three more to go before the end of the field season. Summer has arrived in Laskeek Bay, with most of the cavity-nesting birds fledged from the wildlife trees, voracious chicks being fed in the Pigeon Guillemot nest boxes, and ants crawling about under sun-warmed rocks.
During week 9, Yves Parizeau and Amalia Schelhorn from Victoria, BC joined the crew. Our second intern of the season, Kimberly Parno, also arrived. Kim has just completed her undergraduate degree at Trent University, and will soon begin a MSc thesis on the genetics of several Haida Gwaii bird species at Queen’s University in Ontario. Kim, Yves and Amalia arrived in time for a busy week, wrapping up the first round of Black Oystercatcher surveys, helping with songbird point counts in the forest, as well as boat-based transect surveys of Laskeek Bay. Joe Halle and a group of students from GKNSS in Daajing Giids also came to spend a day at East Limestone Island, participating and learning about LBCS research programs.
Week Nine Crew.
Photo by Amalia Schelhorn
Week 10 brought Tim Grant from Toronto, Ontario and Nalini Nadkarni and Jack Longino from Salt Lake City, Utah. After a cold rainy boat ride to the island, the week was calm and sunny. Some of the crew thought it was hot, but Jack, a Floridian who has worked in the rainforests of Costa Rica for decades, did not agree! We spent time monitoring the remaining active wildlife trees, searching for the mosses and ants of East Limestone, surveying the Glaucous-winged Gull colonies, and much more.
Week 10 crew start of their day with a group chat among the rocks and June wildflowers of East Limestone Island.
Moss and Epiphyte Project
Whether up in the tree canopies or down a limestone hole, there’s no limit to where Nalini will go to make an exciting moss or epiphyte discovery!
The miniature world of mosses at Laskeek Bay Research Station
Nalini Nadkarni, Volunteer
June 27, 2024
Although the terrestrial biota of Haida Gwaii is dominated by big trees in terms of biomass, the miniature world of mosses is amazingly diverse, ecologically important – and fascinating. Mosses are everywhere, covering the moist forest floor, settled upon trunk surfaces, and adorning branches and twigs with green upholstery. There are over 8,000 species worldwide, and over 300 species on Haida Gwaii, far more than the number of trees, shrubs, flowers, mammals, and birds combined!
I am an ecologist who studies forest canopies in tropical and temperate rainforests, with a focus on the “epiphytes” - the plants that derive support but not nutrients from the host trees on which they perch – and those include mosses. As a volunteer at Laskeek Bay, I decided to learn about the mosses that flourish here, and to share what I learn with others who visit.
When I first arrived, they presented a “green curtain’ a confusing blend of green and gold of varying shapes and forms spread widely over the landscape. But when I collected them as individual clumps, I could distinguish them into the categories that bryologists (scientists who study mosses) have established. The leaves of acrocarpus mosses grow upright, like bright green soldiers standing at attention, while pleurocarpus mosses sprawl about their substrate, like families vacationing at the beach.
Happily, there are several excellent books at the Station that are vital to further classification, none specific to Haida Gwaii, but all of which describe the mosses that live in the bioregion. Their illustrations, photographs, and botanical keys helped me identify several dozen of the most common mosses I encountered. I created a synoptic moss collection, making an individual, labelled packet for each species, assembled in a shoebox, ready for perusal by future visitors. Here are three of my favorites.
The “stepping stone” moss (Hylocomium splendens), whose distinctive growth form reflects the sequential emergence of a single shoot, so it looks like a miniature ladder, and forms large bolsters on logs and the forest floor.
The “electric cat-tail” moss (Rhytidiaelphus triquetrus), a terrestrial moss that sports fuzzy light green tips, giving it a look of the tail of a cat who has put its paws in an electric outlet.
The “palm tree” moss (Leucolepis menziesii), whose structure is that of a miniature palm tree, with an erect, bare stem, topped by a cluster of foliage.
Beyond the joy the of categorizing and identifying mosses, it is good to know their importance for other members of the ecosystem, including people. Mosses can absorb large amounts of water, and so their presence keeps soils moist during dry spells. Although very few animals eat moss for food because of its very low nutritional value, many birds -- such as Chestnut-backed Chickadees, Townsend’s Warblers, and Pacific Wrens -- use moss to make their nests, which provides both a softer substrate for their chicks and camouflage cover against predators.
Indigenous people used moss for diapers, and soldiers have used mosses for bandages, as the acidic nature of mosses serves as a natural anti-bacterial agent. Currently mosses are used extensively in horticulture, for packing of bulbs and to enhance flower arrangements.
The next time you visit the island, drop to your hands and knees, grab a handful of the green stuff, and take a close look at these tiny plants that comprise a fantastic world within the bigger world of East Limestone Island Research Station.
Moss Collection by Nalini Nadkarni.
The Big World of Ants
John Longino is an ant taxonomist, biologist and professor at the University of Utah, here are his findings on the Ants of Haida Gwaii:
“Ants are among the most successful insects on the planet. Ants comprise the insect family Formicidae, with about 15,000 known species. All ants are social, living in colonies. From 20 June to 2 July 2024 I had the opportunity to survey Haida Gwaii ants. On arrival, I had a day to examine the urban areas of Daajing Giids and the bog habitat on the ridge above Daajing Giids. Then I spent a week on East Limestone Island, with intensive search for ants. There I was assisted by Rian Dickson, Amaya Black, and Kimberly Parno. I found a total of seven species. They were all common boreal species that can be found across North America. The three most common species, common everywhere I visited, were Lasius pallitarsis, Formica neorufibarbis, and a species in the Leptothorax muscorum complex. I found one or more of these even on small remote islands (Kingsway and Lost Island) near East Limestone Island. It is clear that these are good dispersers and can inhabit any place with vegetation and soil. Ants were only found in microsites exposed to the sun at ground level. Any areas with closed canopy conifer forest, with dark moss-covered forest floor, appear to be devoid of ants.”
Prior to John’s search there had only been three species of ants recorded on Haida Gwaii, John didn’t just double the know number of ant species in Haida Gwaii, he was excited to find Stenamma diecki, an inconspicuous orange ant to the untrained eye, but in John’s words: “This is a significant extension of the known range of the genus and is possibly the northernmost record of the genus in North America”.
In science, sometimes what isn’t there is just as interesting or important to know as what is there. After chatting with a local carpenter and ground truthing, John concluded that there aren’t Carpenter ants on Haida Gwaii.
The crew was enraptured and horrified to learning about on of John’s other ant observation Lasius subumbratus. This widespread boreal species is a temporary social parasite— a single queen will infiltrate the colony of another species (L. pallitarsis), kill their queen, roll in her pheromones and replace her. The colony doesn’t detect the infiltrator and will raise the young she produces as their own. Slowly the colony composition changes from L. pallitarsis to L. subumbratus and eventually the parasitic colony takes over. They are entirely subterranean so this cunning heist takes place out of view.
If you’re interested in diving deeper into the world of ants, John’s full report can be found on the "Latest News" page of our website.
From Volunteer Tim Grant:
As someone who had never before participated in ecological research projects, I didn’t know what to expect from my week in Laskeek Bay. Amidst the daily excursions, there were many surprises. The first was discovering how many trees had been blown down by hurricane-force winds in 2010. Seeing how shallowly-rooted each of the downed trees were was another surprise. Learning that most of those trees were between 148 and 152 years old left me pondering what cataclysmic event occurred on the island at that time.
Over the years, I have had many opportunities to build cabins and open up trails in various parts of Ontario. As such, I really appreciated how much work has taken place on East Limestone Island to build the infrastructure that enables the ecological monitoring to take place. It takes time to build cabins, tent platforms and nesting boxes, create what are now a dozen trails across the island and install wildlife cameras. Ensuring that enough food can be stored and prepared for all those in camp each week is another layer of complexity that has been well-thought out by the Society.
What I did expect was to learn and to help out with the many ongoing research projects. Almost from the beginning, my head was filled with details about the life cycle of birds such as Ancient Murrelets, Pigeon Guillemots and Black Oystercatchers. I spent a few hours observing “wildlife trees” to see if they were being used this year by cavity-nesting birds. With other team members, I scrambled on grassy slopes above the tide line looking for nests being used by Cassin’s Auklets. (It helped that the active nests could often be smelled before you saw them.) Each of these hands-on activities were followed by discussions that deepened our understandings.
My week in Laskeek Bay was enriched by the many patient explanations I received from those that generously shared their knowledge and their passion for wildlife. The comradery that developed only heightened the enjoyment of the week. I feel very privileged to have been a volunteer for such a wonderful organization and in such a spectacular site.
Editor's Note: Tim also did an excellent job pruning and clearing all the trails across East Limestone Island!
Trail markers.
In other news, we have broken with tradition and are experimenting with new forms of poetry!
The birds of East Limestone, they say,
Are looked at by night and by day,
Biologists know
By the markings they show
If it’s a sapsucker or jay.
_
A limestone moss opined
While pleurally slanting and supine
My dear, the others are phonia
You are my true archegonia
Riddle Me This...
And a riddle instead of a trivia question:
What is called when mosses brawl?
(Answer: A bryophyte)
Above: Snake Liverwort, photo by Neil Pilgrim
Unless otherwise noted, all photos in this Limestone Log courtesy of Amaya Black.
Answer to last issue's Trivia Question... "A LOT!"