Water Health

Water health and quality are one of the most important factors of a wetland. If the water is unhealthy or too warm/dirty, its simple, things don't survive in it. Or worse, certain species that are more resilient will take over and completely overwhelm the ecosystem not allowing a chance for the rest of the wetland to bounce back.

Throughout the year I did a few eDNA water tests to see what I could find in my pond at home. I found things like Copepods and even native freshwater clams (Pea Clams). An interesting thing though is that no eel DNA was found on the samples, which was strange given I was regularly catching them with the fyke net. This could have been because the eels in the pond were not shedding enough DNA into the water whilst the tests were in, meaning none was detected. 

Here are a couple of pies that show the differences in sequence counts of the five main species' groups:

As you can see flatworms from the first test was basically replaced by crustaceans in the second test. This is because on the first test Stenostomum leucops aquariorum (flatworms) had the second highest sequence count, and the second time round Copepods (crustaceans) had the second highest sequence count. You can also see that algae had a slight spike. This is cause Spirogyra suddenly showed up with a sequence count of nearly forty six thousand.

Here are a few cool findings from one of the samples I did:

Copepod

  • Copepods are tiny little freshwater plankton shrimp things-about 0.5-2 miler meters long usually.

Mallard Duck

  • Mallards are just your typical duck in NZ.

  • You'll find them on most lakes, rivers, streams, and ponds.

Pea Clams-Sphaerium novaezelandiae

  • They are usually 6–12 mm wide, with smooth, oval shells that are pale brown to grey in colour.

  • Found in lakes, rivers, streams, and wetlands — often buried in soft sandy or muddy sediments.

All of these are good indicators of a working and thriving wetland ecosystem. Except for maybe mallards, they'll live in just about anything. Pea Clams especially are a very sensitive species and require decent water quality to thrive.