Why's your leg bleeding?

Well school has officially let out for the summer and that marks the start of our field season. While everyone was busy staying up late and finishing exams, our crews enviously watch the dropping water levels and temperature rising into the 80's and 90's in the central part of the state. Everyone was dying to be out of the classroom and back in the streams after a very cold long winter. I had spent some time in early February and late April collecting water samples for my project and scouting out the final locations of my field sites. The difference in vegetation from February to April was astonishing. If it hadn't been for the GPS, I wouldn't have believed some of the sites were the same.

My downstream site for Sandy Creek during February (top) and April (bottom)

The winter trips were nice because most of the aquatic vegetation was dead and we could get a real feel for where the beaver dams were located (see left photo below). Come spring, the taro, saw grasses, and cattails were back making the study sites feel more like a swampy jungle in southeast Asia than the Piedmont of North Carolina (right below).

The spring water collection trips were pleasant. You could decide to go with waders or without. Water temperatures were about 19 degrees C (66 F) and easily wadeable. However, my philosophy has always been to keep a barrier between you and well... the things you can't see, whether that be a wetsuit, pair of pants or canvas waders. There are several good reasons for this. One of the members of our team decided to go without waders..... and encounter several of the slithering organisms shown below.


About a 4-inch purple leach speckled with bright orange spots. I looked down at my friends leg, with blood coming through his pants. He pulled up his pant leg to reveal an open lesion, no leech, but perfect circular bite mark. Now for some, they get the creeps thinking about something attached to a leg, slowly sucking out blood with a series of circular teeth. But for others, like my friend, "they're are really cool, you know?" Leeches are one of the most understudy groups of organisms in the world. They are highly diverse and quite fascinating. There are approximately 700-1,000 different species of leeches globally, found in both aquatic (ranging from marine to freshwater) and terrestrial environments. Leeches use a variety of mechanisms to find their prey, including chemoreception (chemical), mechanoreception (movement and vibrations), photoreception (simple eyes able to detect light changes and movement), and even sonar. Additionally, not all leeches suck blood. Some leeches are predatory and use a proboscis like a needle to impale prey items. And contrary to common thought, they aren't the typically cold-blooded, blood-sucking bad guys. Several species of leeches partake in different forms of parental care, including such behaviors are nest building and carrying their young and eggs on their bellies. Some even have marsupial pouches and feed their young. So maybe my friend is right.... And if I don't have you convinced yet, just know that leeches are still used in many modern medical practices today for blood disorders, and unlike ticks and other blood suckers, leeches don't carrying any communicable diseases.

This information  is courtesy of a manuscript produced as part of http://www.invertebrate.ws
Text is Copyright © 2004 by Fredric R. Govedich and Bonnie A. Bain.

For more information about leeches visit: http://www.invertebrate.us/leech/info/leech.pdf

Float Houses of the Apalachicola (and Chipola)

Part I

Most of my day is spent dredging the bottom of the Apalachicola and Chipola Rivers for mussels. This is a hard feat to accomplish in 2m (6ft) of water with 15 lbs of weight on and a snorkel. Timing is everything. The bottom of the river at 2m is a low visibility murky place with soft mud and steep banks. The other day when I was diving down everything went dark, I mean pitch dark..... and you wonder hmmm.... is that just the cloud of silt I kicked up from the bottom of the river blocking out the sun..... or is there a very large reptile/fish above me. Turns out it was silt and the sun attempted to shine through the murky water down to me once again. Most people think we are crazy.... which some days I wonder if I am (especially when you've been in the field for almost a month straight). But, I love my job, career, hobby, past-time..... Whatever it is, I love it. I am challenged everyday. Some days it's mental, some days it's physical, and on the hard days it's both. Those are the days I fall asleep in bed at 8:30 trying to text my friends back "Yes, I'm okay". Some days are just plain amazing. Take a look for yourself.

The Apalachicola River

An Emerging Butterfly

Heading back for the day

And on the bad days.... there is always the float houses to cheer you up. So, this portion of the blog is dedicated to the amazing float houses of the Apalachicola and Chipola Rivers.

The Party Float House

Dead Head Loggers

Yes... Even floating dog kennels

The Beginning

Hello All,

First before I begin posting about my field work, I would like to thank you all for taking the time out of your busy schedules to read about my adventures in the field. The content of this blog is suppose to be humorous as well as educational. Hopefully, I will manage to get both points across.

The Month of July.

Recently, as in the beginning of July, I decided to begin a blog. Shortly after, several note worthy experiences happened in the field, which I couldn't wait to blog about. I will get to these later. However, as irony would have it, my computer and all my electronics were stolen out of my hotel room in Louisburg, NC. Therefore, many of the stories told in this posting have occurred over the entire month of July.

First: a little more detail about my job.

I am working with several amazing people on several different projects. First, I am working with a mussel crew based in NC examining the effects of mill dams on freshwater mussel densities and diversities. The second crew, which is basically a blend of the first, is examining fish communities in the same locations. The first two jobs are projects run by Masters students. I also bounce around on a few projects in Alabama and Florida. These projects are usually funded by the government. Lastly, I am beginning my Master's work on how beavers affect freshwater mussels in NC.

The NC crew (minus a few) Fish Shocking

Apalachicola Field Crew

Second: a little information about why I study freshwater mussels.

Most people, as you will soon find out in this blog, don't know about freshwater mussels let alone know that they are one of the most imperiled group of organisms on the planet. And this is perfectly fine. They're not fluffy pandas or floppy eared elephants. They are not cool cats or dangerous predators. They tend to "clam-up" when you grab them. They don't purr, try to kill you, or have flashy feathers. In fact, they are mostly small sessile rocks that suck up dirt and water from the river bottom and spit it back out. As our lab likes to say, "they are rocks that suck". But at the same time, these sucking rocks filter the water. They help to make the water clear and pure. They are one of the first organisms to die in the presence of pollution (whether that be chemical runoff from a parking lot with motor oil, fertilizers, PCB's, lead, the list goes on on on) or physical disturbances (sediment runoff from that cool new river house, channelization of the stream, destabilized banks, that also goes on and on on). These little almost unnoticeable "rocks" do a lot to improve our waters. They are also pretty neat. They may not be able to bite your head off, but they can do that to a fish (Epioblasma triquetra "The Snuffbox"). Nearly all (except for Simpsonaias ambiguia "The Salamander Mussel") are parasitic on fish. Mussels make extensions from their mantle (the fleshy part covering their gills) that look like bait fish, worms, and crayfish. These lures encourage fish to swim close to the mussel to check out the "snack". Once the fish is close enough, the mussel (depending on the species) will either bite or spray larval mussels (glochidia) on the fish's face. Some mussels also make superconglutonates and conglutonates that are filled with glochidia. These packages also tend to resemble fish, aquatic insects, and even leaches. So, they might not be the cutest endangered animal on the planet, but I think they are pretty cool and important. Hopefully, you do too.

Elliptio complanata with brown papillae (their filters)

That's the basics on mussels and my field work. Now that you know some of the background, lets get into the good stuff! The field work.

Well.. unfortunately... the rain has stopped here in Wewahitchka, Fl. So back to the field. The stories will have to wait.

Field Sites in NC