The Bees are out...and it's March

Photo credit: AskNature.org

As I sit here in my backyard on this record breaking warm day in March, I am buzzed by bees and wasps flying near my head.  While this is a startling occasion at any time, I wondered how the bees will fare when this unseasonably warm weather cools to the normally chilly spring that we normally have.  We will still have a frost, right?  And thinking about it, how do bees survive Chicago winters at all?  And is there anything we can learn from them?

Drawing of a Nautilus Shell

Abstracting a natural object and graphically depicting it as an architectural object.  

Structure of a Spider Web

It is a well known biomimicry meme that ounce for ounce, spider silk is stronger than steel or Kevlar.  But what is it about the structure of a spider silk that makes it so strong?   Is it the nano scale makeup of the silk?  Is it the pattern?  Do the patterns indicate function?  Over the summer, I've collected a couple images of spider webs as I've seen them and tried to learn a little more about what makes them so special and how we can learn from them.

Spiral orb web in the forest

I started by taking a walk in the forest preserve near my house. Quite quickly I came upon the most ratty looking, massive spider web I'd ever seen.  It looked like something out of a haunted house movie - spiral, torn, and at the center was a huge spider.  As soon as I walked through the brush to get a closer look, the spider took off thinking it should be afraid of me (the feeling was mutual).


It's about Scale

The first thing I learned about spider web construction is that it is modular based on the size of the spider - the larger the spider, the larger the gaps between the threads for the simple fact that the spider must walk on it without getting stuck in its own web.  In fact, the scale of the space between the sticky threads that catch prey is directly proportional to the space from the tip of its back leg to its spinner.

This makes me think of the whole idea of "human scale" in architecture, which of course varies.  Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes for men of smaller stature, such as himself, so that when a taller person such as me walks through a home he designed, I feel like a giant.  The difference is mere inches, but it is noticeable.  Cathedrals were designed in direction opposition to the idea of human scale - they were designed to overwhelm the humans that entered them in order to convey the greatness of their god.  But the spaces where we feel most comfortable are the ones that have been designed down to the detail with our proportions in mind.

Learning from Carpenter Ants

Carpenter Ant Colony in a Bounce House

In honor of my biology professor, Adrian Smith, who has devoted his career to studying ants, I chose to learn a little bit about the carpenter ants which until this morning and without my knowledge had built a small colony in my kid's rolled up bounce house.

I have no idea why a colony of carpenter ants would chose to build a satellite community in a rolled up bit of plastic fabric.  It must have been dark and slightly damp and that must have been enough.  It was a poor choice on her behalf.  After the destruction of their nest, the ants were obviously very erratic and grabbed their rice shaped pupae, or egg sacks, and scattered in the grass.  I watched them for a while, trying to determine if they had any idea where they were going, but they just seemed to be running for cover.  Within minutes, each and every egg sack had been picked up and was being carried by an ant in its pincers and within a few minutes, very few pupae were visible.  Ants in general are very good at concealing themselves to avoid predation, so it is difficult to follow ants in grass and see where they go.

Sanibel Island Ecosystem Interactions

Marine Life Interactions at Sanibel Island
(sketch by Amy Coffman Phillips)

This iSite took place on an ecology tour through Tarpon Bay on the Ding Darling Natural Wildlife Refuge in Sanibel Island, FL.  A biologist, Brianna Coffman who turns out to be a distant unknown cousin of my dad (it's a small, interconnected world), led our tour with incredible knowledge and insight about this coastal marsh ecosystem.  In addition to the insights learned from the boat, our tour guide also gave us knowledge about how marine life interacts below the sea, interactions I've sketched above.  Because this was a boat tour and not a snorkeling tour, my photos of their aquarium will have to suffice for now.

my biologist guide's attempt to recreate tarpon bay's marine ecosystem
(photo by Faye Coffman)

Barnacles attach to any hard substrate they can find, including the shells of various marine organisms.  While walking the beach, I found beautiful pink and white barnacles attached to a pen shell (marine mollusk).  Given the amount of dead pen shells with barnacles I found on the beach, it is possible that the barnacles could get out of control and adversely affect the pen shell's ability to feed itself, developing a parasitic relationship. 

Whelks, such as the Lightening Whelk Conch, are carnivores that are able to eat the flesh of the barnacle by grinding down their outer shell.  The Conch uses its shell to grind and can repair and grow new shell using calcium from the ocean - talk about life friendly chemistry!   They also use suction to pry open the shells of their prey, and their favorite food seems to be the Arck, because their shells must number in the trillions and create Sanibel's white sand beaches.  These beaches create more land mass and continue the cycle of land creation.

Red Mangrove roots forming new islands
(photo by Amy Coffman Phillips)

As this sketch shows, terrestrial organisms are continually looking for new opportunities to colonize new land formed by the shells of marine life.  

Terrestrial Interactions at Sanibel Island
(sketch by Amy Coffman Phillips)

Intertidal zone sand bars are colonized by oysters, which form land by secreting a natural concrete-like compound and bind them together and with the land.  The interstitial spaces are filled by crabs and other organisms looking for shelter from the birds.  The birds land, looking for the crabs and find some, leaving feces to fertilize the sand bar with nitrogen, necessary for plant growth.

Sand bars that stay more or less above the tides are colonized by floating mangrove seedlings, which grow roots into the sand.  Barnacles and other organisms colonize the roots and trap more sediment, which stabilizes the roots and allows the plant to grow more roots.  Birds sit on these roots and look for food, giving nitrogen to the new soil with their feces.  This process grows an island and the sum of its parts are greater than they would be if each organism existed alone.

Mangroves have an impact on the ecosystem at the macro-scale as well.  This network of roots in the coastal marshes are the nurseries of the ocean and they help coastal nurseries respond to dynamic non-equilibrium by dampening hurricane winds and slowing flood waters.  

The Laughing Gull on Sanibel Island

Laughing Gull on Sanibel Island

We just returned from our vacation to Sanibel Island and Ft. Myers, Florida and it is so nice to get a break from the cold winters in Chicago. As a part of my work on the Biomimicry Professional Certificate Program, I get to do site observations called iSites. During this time, I have the luxury to think and observe nature while trying to tune out distractions - not always easy for a mom with two small kids. For this iSite, I was to imagine my life as an organism I observed, and the seagulls on Sanibel Island are ubiquitous.

I feel a bit like I am cheating on my iSite to talk about the sea gulls at Sanibel. I threw down a cracker and within three minutes, there were about 20 birds hovering over me. Yes, I know I'm not supposed to feed the wildlife, but sometimes you get great pictures that way!

If I were a seagull, I would spend much of my time waiting for humans on the beach to leave or throw food. I would not be that dissimilar to a vulture in my feeding habits. When humans are not around as much, I scavenge and swim for crabs and shrimps. I coexist nicely with other shore birds, but we are very competitive over food. I have agile wings and can catch food in the air. I'm an omnivore. I'm not picky. Most of my cousins scavenge in parking lots and landfills, so by comparison I'm very classy.

My special niche is my ability to take advantage of areas where humans or other organisms have changed the habitat substantially. While I prefer to breed in coastal marshes and beaches, human modification of this habitat does not bother me. My colony mates and I adapt well. We make our nests of grasses.

I have few natural preditors. Some herring gulls feed on my eggs if I am not careful, but beyond the search for food I have little population control. You will find me everywhere on the coast.