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Dear Editor:   I wish to address a statement made by our first selectman, David Denvir, in his June 5th "From the Selectman's Desk".  In his article he writes about the threats caused by mosquitoes and goes on to say "We all know by now that mosquitoes breed in standing water, most commonly in water that does not contain an active fish population. This could easily be the vernal pool in the woods behind your home or that small pond or marshy area that only dries up toward the end of the summer."

While this could be true of a vernal pool that has had its natural diversity compromised, as many throughout New England have, a viable and healthy vernal pool has just the opposite effect on mosquito populations. Vernal pools are the breeding areas for wood frogs, spotted and marbled salamanders, and in some cases, bullfrogs, green frogs, pickerel frogs, tree frogs and spring peepers.  The first three are consider "obligate" species, meaning they are dependent upon these ephemeral habitats for breeding, while the others, considered "facultative" breed in a variety of watercourses.  In a vernal pool, where fish are absent, they are at the top of the food chain and together create an effective defense against mosquitoes.

While the adult frogs and, to a lesser extent, salamanders do a job on the insects, it is the larvae of the salamanders that do the lion's share of the work.  They are voracious aquatic insectivores that feed upon the larvae and pupae of mosquitoes.  Remove them from the pond, and the mosquitoes have little to keep them in check.

Spotted salamanders and wood frogs, when done breeding in these vernal pools in the late winter/early spring (marbled salamanders breed in the late summer/early fall), spend the rest of the season beneath the leaf litter within about a 1,200 radius in the surrounding deciduous forest.  This leaf litter is vital to their survival.  Here they feed, seek shelter, and overwinter.  The leaves from the trees also form the initial nutrient base for the food chain.  The leaves are broken down and fed upon by bacteria and detritus-feeding isopods.  These in turn are fed upon by larger insects and crustaceans, which are fed upon by larger ones, and so on.  If you remove this wooded habitat, you remove their amphibian inhabitants from the pools. If you remove the amphibians, the mosquitoes thrive.

Nature has set up a very delicate balance here.  Vernal pools are by nature, mosquito traps.  This feeds the throngs of hungry amphibians.  Few mosquitoes survive in these pools.  From a human standpoint, this is an excellent system.  In fact, if mosquitoes bred solely in vernal pools, the laws of attrition would force the amphibians do some more supplementing with other insects (which they do).  But there are a variety of other habitats, including pools too small to harbor insectivores, where they thrive.  As Mr. Denvir correctly pointed out, these are the areas we need to worry about. But if we don't protect the vernal pools and the surrounding habitat vital to these environs, we leave behind larger bodies of mosquito-friendly habitat.  While years ago this would only have created a nuisance, it is now, because of the mosquito-borne diseases, a health threat.

John Himmelman
www.ctamphibians.com

Editor's note: First Selectman David Denvir's weekly column appears on this site on Saturdays. The column referred to can be accessed here.