2012 February 12 Creek Microhabitat

Location: N Bridge. Parking Lot F Forest. Off the bridge on the N trail.
GPS: 47*05'41.87N 122"58'37.23" W Elevation:121ft

Weather: Overcast. It had been sunny earlier.

Habitat: Stream. ACMA, THPL dominates. Downed woody debris laying across the stream.

Species: No insects observed. I've seen a dog and a few people.

Within 50 yds of the stream, there is a new liverwort that I haven't seen before. It grows on ACMA boles, enmeshed with a feathery, pinnately-branching moss. The moss is producing sporophytes at this time. I the liverwort again next to the stream where it forms rounded "scales/shingles." I assume this is because of the extra humidity. See photo.

South of the bridge, there is a stream-bank micro-habitat at the base of a THPL, where the stream has eroded a bit under the THPL root ball. I wonder how long the tree has before it falls over. A week ago, I collected a moss with appressed leaves that are in one plane. I ruined my sample before I keyed the moss out, so I came back here to for a little more.

This moss habitat is shielded from S light by fallen, well-decomposed, downed-woody-debris. The logs are't falling apart yet, but they don't have bark any more and moss communities are well-established on them. The community I'm looking at has my mystery moss, L. acanthoneuron, and two of the larger-leaved mosses that I don't know yet. There is also what I think is another, appressed-leaved, leaves-in-one-plane moss, with a lot of new growing tips, growing right above the water. However, it turns out to be the mystery moss that I've already collected that is just more robust because of its close position to the water. See photo.

Question: I wonder what will happen to this moss community when the THPL falls over.

Publicado el febrero 13, 2012 05:31 MAÑANA por homeformosses