Wall Springs Park

Last Friday's class met at Wall Springs park. Here we learned about Karst topography and it's results in Florida's geography. Bluffs, depression marshes and ponds, caves, sinks and springs are all results of Karst topography. All of these form when acidic water dissolves the limestone. We learned about the different categories of organisms that live in these types of ecosystems: troglobites (live entirely in cave), troglophiles (live both inside and outside of cave), and trogloxenes (only visit caves temporarily. Troglobites have adapted for these living conditions by having heightened chemosensory  as well as lacking pigmentation or sight, as it is not needed in these living conditions. Georgia blind salamanders are an example of troglobites. Bats are an example of troglophiles, with heightened hearing and smell for hunting, but lacking strong vision. Sunfish are trogloxenes, which do not spend much time in caves, but do visit them on occasion. We also covered the three types of sinks: wet, dry and solution. The difference between the three is that wet sinks are below ground water level, dry winds are above, and solution sinks are above the water table, but in an area where overflow water collects. Something I also learned was how more rainfall means less sinkholes. This is because the water that flows under the surface helps create pressure pushing the surface up. When it is dry, the surface is more likely to collapse inward. Wall Springs park is an estuary, since it connects with the gulf. Because of this, we observed some mangroves in areas, as well as crabs. Blue heron were in this ecosystem, since the water provided fish for them to eat. There were mullet fish we observed which are able to survive in the fresh water from the spring and algae for the fish to feed off of. A threat we observed was a Brazilian pepper plant which is an invasive species to this ecosystem.

 Here you can see a lot of emergent vegetation 

 This is the spring source

 Algae

Red mangrove