Historically Present

Day 242: For several weeks now, Team Biota has been watching the snow melt back in anticipation of being able to time when Myriosclerotinia caricis-ampullaceae might appear in the basin where it was recorded in 1948. For those of you unfamiliar with backcountry travel in the shoulder season, melt-out isn't like the rolling back of a blanket. It's more like a major moth infestation eating away at that same blanket, holes appearing here and there until the fabric is entirely gone. Terrain affects the rate of melt, and sun exposure may work in either of two ways: by causing a hard crust to form lengthening the duration of snow in any particular area, or by melting it. It's not easy to predict which way it will go.

We had a fairly good idea that the basin would melt out ahead of the trail which accesses the general area. In other words, we knew we'd have to travel on a fabric of snow in order to reach the appropriate moth-hole. There, another factor comes into play: cross-country travel. At this time of year, snow travel off-trail poses a number of risks such as pools of meltwater or streams concealed below a fragile surface layer, or the dreaded "tree-well," an area of melt around a tree trunk or fallen log. Snow mats down flexible young trees like alders, pins them down until the spring-loaded branches trip like a mousetrap as soon as a hiker steps on the release point. In this case, we got lucky. The snow was sufficiently deep to allow us to skim over the tops of the tangled trees once we left the trail.

The basin was almost fully melted out. We performed an inch-by-inch survey of the section where Myrio had been present two years ago and found about thirty specimens. Then I circled around to the northwest edge and began working through the basin from tree-line down. Almost immediately, I found one Myrio and then another and another and another. As I shouted out the numbers in the growing census, Joe made his way up a small log which was almost completely grown over by meadow vegetation. I heard his excited call: "Got one...no, two. There's another one! There's a cluster of four, no, five-six-SEVEN!" Meanwhile, I was keeping count, "That makes 51, 52, 53, 57, 58-59-60!" By the time we called it quits, we'd raised the total to 88, but even more thrilling was seeing that they weren't confined to one narrow band. They were all over the place!

Needless to say, this was an exciting field trip. Arnie wasn't in the office when I reported back and returned his radio, but this morning, I gave him the news. Now that we've recorded occurrences in both of the known locations, we'll be expanding our search to other potential sedge meadows. The hunt for Myrio continues!