7T The Watershed Connection What is a Watershed?

A watershed is all the land connected by the fresh water flowing through it. Everybody lives in a watershed and everything we do takes place in a watershed. In Sacramento we live in the Sacramento River Watershed, the largest watershed in .

Northern California storms produce precipitation either in the form of rain or snow. The rain runs off the land in the Sacramento River Watershed. This is called runoff. The earth’s gravity pulls all runoff downhill into a branching network of streams or tributaries. Streams come in all sizes from small creeks to big rushing rivers. Each stream connects to a larger one until it reaches the biggest stream in the watershed. The Sacramento River is the biggest stream in the Sacramento River Watershed. It carries the runoff from the entire watershed toward the Pacific Ocean.

Less than one percent of the earth’s water is freshwater; the rest is saltwater, ice caps, or glaciers. Only a small portion of the freshwater is available for use by people. Streams provide freshwater for many people in California. We could not survive without them or the clean, fresh water they collect from our watershed. When we take care to keep our streams clean and healthy, we are actually taking care of ourselves and every other living thing in the watershed. Clean water supports many more (forms of life) than polluted water.

In a watershed, everyone is someone’s downstream neighbor. People upstream of Sacramento send us their used water. Then we turn around and send our used water to people living downstream of us. Since we all share the same water, it’s everyone’s job to keep it clean. The quality of water depends on us. 8T The Watershed Connection

Sacramento Area Rivers Map 12T Introduction to Vernal Pools What are Vernal Pools?

California vernal pools are a rare type of wetland that exists in very few places on Earth. Around Sacramento, the pools are found in rolling grassland. What makes vernal pools different from other wetlands, ponds or lakes is that they are temporary pools. They are totally dry for eight months of the year during our dry season. In fact in order to have vernal pools, you need a wet season and a dry season, just like the Mediterranean climate of California. Dry mud with tracks and dove weed in a vernal pool.

In Sacramento most rain falls in the winter between December and March. This is when the vernal pools fill with water. Once the rain stops in the spring, the pools begin to evaporate. By the end of April, the pools fill with tiny flowers growing from the once muddy bottom. Vernal pools are so colorful in spring, they are named for spring: Vernal means “spring” in Latin.

Within a few weeks all of the flowers have made their seeds and the plants have dried up. By July all that remains of the vernal pools is dried, cracked soil and a carpet of short, brown plants. The pools rest like this for another six months until the winter rains return. Then the cycle begins again.

Winter Spring Summer/Fall Wet Phase Flower Phase Dry Phase 13T Introduction to Vernal Pools

The Vernal Pool Grassland

When rain falls on a vernal pool grassland, some water sinks into the ground and the rest flows slowly over the land as runoff. This runoff flows to streams or into depressions (low places) in the grassland. The water cannot move deeper into the ground in a vernal pool grassland because hard- pan blocks its path.

Hardpan is a layer of clay or minerals that water cannot pass through easily. The hardpan can be a few inches to a few feet below the ground surface. Under the grassland, the hardpan acts like the bottom of a bathtub holding up the water. As winter rains continue, rain and runoff saturate (fill with water) the soil above the hardpan. The water perches (sits) on the hardpan. In the upland (the higher, drier areas of vernal pool grasslands) we cannot see this water because the water table is below the soil surface. The only place we can see the perched water is in the depressions we call vernal pools.

The only way for vernal pools to empty is by very slow movement of water through the ground or by evaporation. This can take days, weeks or months depending on the amount of rainfall, the air temperature and the size of the pool. While some vernal pools are bigger than a playground, many are no larger than a classroom. No two pools are exactly alike.

Throughout the uplands are scattered large humps of soil called mima mounds. Nobody knows exactly how mima mounds and vernal pools formed because it happened long ago. It is likely that earthquakes, volcanoes and floods all helped shape the present land surface over the last half a million (500,000) years. Since human beings did not arrive in California until about 12,000 years ago, vernal pools have been a part of our landscape far longer than people.

View of mima mounds and vernal pools from a small airplane. 14T Introduction to Vernal Pools

Vernal Pools and Human History

For many thousands of years tribes of native people came to the vernal pool grasslands to collect food. As recently as 1868, conservationist John Muir described his first view of spring in the Cen- tral Valley vernal pool grassland. —Sauntering in any direction my feet would brush about a hundred flowers with every step, as if I were wading in liquid gold.— He carefully noted that this natural flower garden was nearly 400 miles long and 30 miles wide.

Within 125 years of his visit, up to 90 percent of California’s vernal pools were gone. Most had been drained and plowed to feed the ever-growing population of California and the nation. In the furrows left by the plow, farmers still find the stone mortars and pestles of the native people who had used the land before them.

Most of the vernal pools we find today occur in the few large cattle ranches that remain in California. As these ranches are converted to vineyards and new communi- ties, more vernal pools disappear. Military bases are the other refuge for vernal pool grasslands. Much of the land within their fences was not developed during the 1900s. As these bases are converted to non-military uses, roads and buildings threaten these vernal pools too.

Looking into a vernal pool is like looking back in time. These temporary wetlands look much like they did over 100,000 years ago. Visiting a vernal pool is like walking into a time when roamed this land and there were no people. You can see a piece of what John Muir described and explore a unique part of California’s Stone mortar used by native people to grind seeds and perhaps even fairy shrimp. natural heritage. When you are done, perhaps you can answer a question many people ask, “What good are vernal pools, anyway?” 18T The Three Phases of the Vernal Pool Ecosystem

The Wet Phase: Winter in the Vernal Pools

As soon as the winter rains begin to puddle in the vernal pools, tiny creatures called and spring to life. Many of them feed on detritus, bits of dead plants and animals that lie on the bottom of the pool. These detritus feeders are, in turn, eaten by many other tiny animals. Micro- scopic (very tiny) green plants called algae are the next to appear. They are like tiny floating food factories, providing the energy that powers most of the other species in a vernal pool.

Now that the winter pools are full of water and are teeming with bacteria, algae and protozoa, many more aquatic species begin to appear. The water signals to the resting spores, eggs, and cysts of aquatic life that it is time to hatch and grow. Within a few weeks, dozens of species of inverte- brates (small animals without backbones) will be living in the pools. Each aquatic species must hurry and complete its life cycle before the pool dries out in the spring.

When vernal pools are full of aquatic life, it’s like putting a meal on the table. Frogs, snakes, birds, and mammals come to the vernal pools for dinner. The food web connects all the species in the vernal pool grassland ecosystem. An ecosystem is a community of plants and animals that depend on one another and their environment for survival.

Fact of Life: Not every individual of a species will survive long enough to reproduce. Most will become food for another creature. In an ecosystem the survival of the individual does not matter. The survival of the species is what is important. As long as some individuals repro- duce, the species will continue.

We know very little about this ecosystem and the species that call it home. There is so much left to discover. However, we do know one thing for sure: vernal pool creatures need clean water. Clean water is Pacific Chorus Frog the key to abundant life.

This baby Water Flea is surrounded by microscopic An aquatic beetle larva known as a “Water Tiger” eats a diatoms. Protozoa, bacteria, diatoms, and algae are all Water Boatman. Like many invertebrates, they are microscopic, meaning we need a microscope to see them macroscopic. Although you can see them with your naked at all. eye, you need a magnifying lens to see their parts. 19T The Three Phases of the Vernal Pool Ecosystem

The Flower Phase: Spring in the Vernal Pools

Spring is a beautiful time to visit a vernal pool grassland. As the pools dry down in March, the seeds of vernal pool plants grow in the muddy soil. Over 200 plant species can grow in vernal pools. However, over 60 of these species are endemic to vernal pools, meaning they can grow only in vernal pools and nowhere else. If not for vernal pools, they would become extinct.

The plants grow quickly along the shrinking edge of the water. Within four weeks they cover the entire bottom of each vernal pool. As the first plants bloom, their flowers can make colorful rings around the outside of the pools. During the month of April, the display of wildflow- ers in the pools changes from week to week. By late April, yellow, white, pink, and purple flowers carpet the pools with splashes of color.

These pink monkeyflowers grow well on bare mounds of These plants bloom late in spring. The bulbs of the soil heaped up by pocket gophers that tunnel under the Brodiaea (larger flower) are a favorite food of Botta’s vernal pools searching for Brodiaea bulbs. Pocket Gophers. Few vernal pools host Douglas’s Beardstyle; it needs very special conditions to grow.

Vernal pools are like snowflakes in that no two are exactly alike. While each pool usually has 15 to 20 different species of wildflowers in it, the mix of species can be different in every pool. Plants select their host pools based on the growing conditions of each vernal pool. Some plants prefer shallow pools that dry quickly or the higher, drier areas within deeper pools. Other plants grow where the water is deeper and lasts longer into the spring. Most of the habits of vernal pool plants are still a mystery to scientists. 20T The Three Phases of the Vernal Pool Ecosystem

The Dry Phase: Summer and Fall in the Vernal Pools

By the beginning of summer, the soil in the bottom of the vernal pools cracks and dries. Temperatures in the Central Valley reach over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Most of the vernal pool plants dry up and turn brown. All the aquatic life dies or leaves the pools.

Although the critters are gone, they leave behind the eggs, cysts, spores and seeds that will carry the genes of their species through the long, hot Scientists have found Fairy Shrimp eggs (called cysts) summer. Each species has a way to survive the over 100 years old. When the cysts were put in water, they next eight months of drought. It has taken hatched. This cyst is seen with a special microscope that millions of years for them to adapt to live in makes it look 100 times larger than normal. The Fairy Shrimp in the photo is 5 times larger than normal size. this ecosystem. We have yet to discover the special adaptations that allow most vernal pool species to survive in this harsh environment.

Although it can look dry and barren, the grasslands and vernal pools support many species through the summer and fall. The seeds left by spring plants provide food for insects, birds, and rodents. Pocket gophers travel underground through a shallow system of burrows. They search for plant roots and bulbs, while hiding from the watchful eyes of hungry hawks and coyotes. Toads and frogs seek shelter from predators and the drying sun in these rodent burrows. Snakes slither through the dry grass poking their heads into the burrows, looking for dinner. The food web connects many species, even when this wetland isn’t wet.

Waiting for Rain

In the dryness of fall, it is hard to imagine that in a few weeks the winter rains will return. These bone-dry pools will fill up with runoff and the life cycle of hundreds of species will begin again. Vernal pools will add another year to their long history, giving us another year to investigate their many secrets. 35T

Tools for the Pools

It’s a Matter of Size

Animals and plants come in all sizes and shapes. When you are searching for one, knowing its size can be as important as knowing what it looks like. How can you find something if you don’t even know how big it is?

Suppose you are searching for an elephant, a cat and an ant. You would not bother to look under the bed for an elephant, but you might check there for a cat or an ant. You could spot the cat right away, but you would have to look more closely to see the ant. Knowing what you are looking for and how big it is makes it much easier to find.

You need clues to find organisms (plants and animals) that you have never seen before. Scientists provide clues about size by adding a scale to drawings or photographs of an organism. The scale tells you how much the picture has been enlarged (made bigger) or reduced (made smaller) com- pared with the actual size of the organism.

Most of the animals in vernal pools are much smaller than an ant. Scientists use special tools called magnifiers to magnify an object, making it appear bigger than it really is. A hand lens, dissecting scope, and microscope are all magnifiers. The question is: Which tool should you use? It’s all a matter of size, so listen for a clue in the words “microscopic” or “macroscopic.”

If an organism is called microscopic, it means you will need a microscope to see it. Microscopic organisms are less than 0.25 millimeters (mm) wide, smaller than you can see with your naked eye. Algae, bacteria, detritus, protozoa, and are all microscopic. A cup of water full of microscopic Water Flea organisms looks like a cup of plain water.

If an organism is called macroscopic, it is big 1 X - actual size enough to see with your naked eye but you need a 10 X - hand lens hand lens or dissecting scope to observe important details. A macroscopic organism is between 0.25 mm and 50 mm wide. Fairy Shrimp and tadpoles are macroscopic. A cup of water full of macro- scopic organisms is buzzing with critters.

Larger organisms are big enough to see without any magnification. Scientists do not have a special name for this group, but it includes most of the animals that are familiar to you: birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles. Although these animals are more obvious to us, most of the world’s species 30 X - dissecting scope are actually microscopic or macroscopic. You will discover them when you look more closely at life The pictures above are at 1 X, 10 X and 30 X scale. in our watershed, using the right tools. At 100 X, the Water Flea would be as big as this piece of paper. Most Water Fleas are macroscopic. 42T

Mather Field Vernal Pools

common name Fairy Shrimp occidentalis scientific names lindahli and other species

phylum Arthropoda subphylum Crustacea class order

habitat vernal pools

© Ken Davis size 10-44 mm long description Fairy Shrimp are pale-colored (normally gray-white) and transparent. They have a long, narrow body with 11 pairs of paddle-like legs. Females have a brood pouch which holds eggs located directly behind the legs. fun facts The Fairy Shrimp that inhabit vernal pools are very small, but some species of Fairy Shrimp are huge. One species, Branchinecta gigas, lives in muddy, plant-less, desert lakes, and can grow to 150 mm. That's about the size of a hot dog! life cycle Fairy Shrimp cysts hatch as soon as there is water in the vernal pools. Individuals grow quickly and can reach maturity in 18-60 days depending upon species and the pool conditions. After the adults mate, cysts begin to develop in the female's brood pouch. Once the cysts are fully formed, they are released and sink to the vernal pool bottom. The female may mate again and repeat the process. A single female can produce several hundred cysts during one season. The cysts usually remain dormant until the next year's rain, but they can last for decades. ecology Fairy Shrimp suck water through filters and eat the particles that they strain out of the water. These include bacteria, algae, protozoa, rotifers, and detritus. Fairy Shrimp are a main food source for many creatures. They are eaten by Tadpole Shrimp, Backswimmers, aquatic beetles, aquatic insect larvae, tadpoles, toads, salamanders, Killdeer, and ducks. conservation is listed as a Threatened species. It is found in the Central Valley and a few places in the Coast Ranges where it occurs in only certain types of vernal pools. It may be threatened by extinction due to loss of its vernal pool habitat through development and new agriculture. is the most common of California's vernal pool Fairy Shrimps. investigate Linderiella occidentalis is the only species of Fairy Shrimp that has red eyes. All other species have black eyes. See if you can find the red eyes on shrimp in the field.

53T What’s For Dinner?

Sharing Energy in the Food Web

Plants Capture the Sun’s Energy

Chlorophyll is the main substance on Earth that can capture the energy in sunlight and store it. It is in all green plants. Chlorophyll allows plants to turn the sun’s energy into building blocks to build their bodies. These building blocks are called carbon molecules. They are too small to see (even with a microscope) but all plants and animals are made from them.

This is a common species of algae in the vernal pools, Cycling Energy through the Food Web Zygdema. This is how it looks through a microscope - about 40 times bigger than it would appear to the naked Plants are the foundation of the food web. The eye. Notice the tiny cells all connected in long chains. The green color comes from chlorophyll. energy stored in plants is the main source of energy in a food web. When animals or plants die, the energy is locked up in the detritus, waiting to be recycled by the bacteria and protozoa again. It is a cycle that never ends as long as all the species in the food web survive.

Example Food Web This simple food web shows how Wading Birds Coyote energy moves from one species or group to the next. Many connections among species are unknown, because Frogs Snakes vernal pool food webs have not been well studied. The species in a food web are grouped into four levels, Fairy Shrimp Flatworm depending upon where their energy comes from: Protozoa CONSUMERS 1. Dead Matter (detritus) 2. Decomposers (bacteria) Algae PRODUCERS 3. Producers (algae and other green plants that produce energy) Bacteria DECOMPOSERS 4. Consumers (animals that get energy from producers or other Detritus DEAD MATTER consumers). Which level do most of these species occupy? 55T Flower Facts

Why Do Plants Have Flowers? TYPICAL FLOWER The goal of every plant and animal is the same: To create the next generation. The way a plant makes another generation of its species is by making seeds. Flowers are the tools that plants use to make their seeds. PETALS

A seed contains all the information needed to make a new plant. This information is stored as a code in tiny genes within the seed. This ge- netic code forces the seed to grow into a plant like its parents. Although the new plant will be SEPALS the same species as its parents, it will not be exactly the same as either of them. Its genetic code is a new mix of genes, half from each parent.

Only flowers from the same species of plant can produce seeds. A flower provides a place to com- bine the genetic code from a male and a female into a single seed. The combination happens when the pollen, from the male parts of one flower, connects with an ovule (egg) from the female parts of another flower. This is called pollination.

Here are the basic parts of a flower:

INSIDE A FLOWER PETALS

stigma PISTIL anther STAMEN the female the male parts of style contains pollen parts of the flower the flower ovary filament contains ovules

SEPALS

But how does the pollen from one flower get to the ovules of another flower? Unlike animals, plants can’t exactly go out hunting for a mate! Instead of working very hard at attracting each other, plants make flowers to attract pollinators to do the work of mating for them.

Pollinators can be bees, flies, beetles, moths, hummingbirds, bats and other animals that visit flow- ers. They gladly travel from flower to flower to gather the nectar and pollen to feed themselves or their young. The plants make the nectar and pollen just to attract the pollinators. Flowers are like big signs that advertise to pollinators: Eat Here! 56T

When a pollinator goes into a flower to collect nectar or pollen, tiny grains of pollen from the anthers of the flower (the male parts) stick to their bodies. When the pollinator visits another flower of the same species, some of this pollen brushes onto the sticky stigma. The stigma is the receiving end of the pistil (the female part of a flower), where the ovules (eggs) in the ovary wait to be fertilized by the pollen. The pollen travels from the stigma, down the style, to the ovary. When an ovule is fertilized, the genes from the pollen combine with the genes of the ovule and a seed is made!

POLLINATION

2. And deposits it on 1. The pollinator receives the stigma of the pollen from the stamen next flower. of the first flower.

3. The pollen moves down the style to join with the ovules in the ovary.

This is how it happens:

The job of a flower is to help its pollinator put pollen exactly in the right place at the right time to make a seed. When a plant’s flower succeeds at this, the plant gets to pass the secret for this success to the next generation, through the genetic code in its seeds! When a plant fails to grow up and make seeds, its genetic code does not get passed on. It becomes a loser in the game of life.

The environment is constantly testing each plant. Competition for sunlight, water, nutrients and space is fierce. Herbivores are hungry and plants are their breakfast, lunch and dinner! Only the strongest individuals survive long enough to reproduce. These survivors keep making seeds, letting the environment select the winners and losers. Through this selection process plants have evolved (developed) to survive life in every habitat on our planet. This evolution has filled even the harshest habitats with life, including vernal pools.

Although the pollination of a flower may appear to happen by accident, plants and pollinators have been practicing for millions of years to make sure that this “accident” happens. Often a plant and pollinator co-evolve (evolve together), adapting to changes in each other to improve their own survival. A plant species may depend on a single species of pollinator to make its seeds. Likewise, many pollinators rely on one plant species to provide all the food for their young. The complex relationship between solitary bees and certain vernal pools plants is a good example of this co- evolution. 65T Water Quality

Wastewater and Runoff

There are two kinds of “used water” that affect water quality. The water we use indoors is one. It flows from our sinks, bathtubs, showers, toilets and washing machines into underground pipes that make up our Sacramento sewer system. Once this indoor water enters the sewer system, we call it wastewater. Imagine what would happen if we dumped wastewater in the river!

The second kind of “used water” is runoff. Runoff from towns and cities like Sacramento is called urban runoff. Urban runoff carries pollutants washed from our houses, yards, cars, and driveways into street gutters and down the storm drains. From here another set of underground pipes takes it straight to our streams. Even small amounts of pollut- ants in urban runoff are enough to pollute the streams.

Urban runoff happens year round, even in dry weather. If people over water their lawns and gardens, the runoff spills into the storm drains. This sends fertilizers and into our streams. When people wash their cars, the dirty, soapy water ends up there too. Some people even use the storm drains to illegally dump paint, oil, and antifreeze. They do not know or do not care how their actions pollute our streams and impact our water quality. 66T Water Quality Keeping Our Water Clean

Less than 100 years ago, people used streams as their sewer system. Wherever there were people, streams were polluted by wastewater. The wastewater smelled bad and killed almost all the plants and animals living in the streams. The streams carried diseases in the wastewater from one community to those downstream of it. People got sick and died just from drinking the water.

Today the quality of the water in our streams is much better than it was just 50 years ago. Almost all communities now treat their wastewater to remove pollutants before it is sent back to our streams. The Sacramento Wastewater Treatment Plant cleans our waste- water. The cleaned water is put back into the Sacramento River so people downstream of us can use it safely.

Although we have succeeded in cleaning up most wastewater, we still need to clean up our urban runoff. Because there is so much runoff, we cannot send it to a treatment plant. The best way to protect streams from polluted runoff is to keep pollutants from getting into runoff in the first place. You and your family can help to keep runoff clean by doing some simple things to reduce your contribution to pollution.

When you reduce your pollution contri- bution, you are help- ing thousands of aquatic species that depend on clean water for life in our streams, lakes and wetlands. 69T How You Can Help

www.sacsplash.org

Many people in our community have made it possible for you to explore life in our watershed with Splash – scientists, teachers, government workers, parents, and grandparents from all over Sacra- mento. Sharing our knowledge and appreciation of water and nature is one way we can show you that we care about you and this place we call “home.” We know that water and habitat protection starts with education.

You now know much more about vernal pools than most adults in California. You’ve learned the names and stories of plants and animals that call them home. You’ve seen how much they depend on clean water for life. Most importantly, you understand how much clean water depends on us and how you can help protect it.

Now it is your turn to become a kind of teacher. By sharing your knowledge with others you have the power to destroy ignorance. It is ignorance that destroys water quality in our watershed and the life that depends on it. Most people do not know how to keep water clean and why it is important. With more understanding, our community can better protect aquatic life not only in the vernal pools but also in the streams, lakes and other wetlands that need our help.

People care about things they understand and protect what they care about.