Skip to content

Why I’m bringing centuries-old ‘ghost ponds’ back to life

Why I’m bringing centuries-old ‘ghost ponds’ back to life

July 17, 2017 SVadmin Comments 0 Comment
By Emily Alderton
File 20170713 12477 t9q3tx
Emily Alderton, Author provided

Over the past century half of the world’s ponds and wetlands have been destroyed, with many being filled in and turned into agricultural land. However, all is not lost, and it is possible to “resurrect” these buried habitats from the seeds and eggs stored within their historic sediments. A new conservation approach pioneered by the UCL Pond Restoration Research Group can restore aquatic habitats lost to the landscape for centuries.

Ponds can be extremely biodiverse. They support more aquatic species than any other freshwater habitat and provide important food sources for farmland birds and bats.

At the start of the 20th century there were an estimated 800,000 ponds in England and Wales – now, it is thought that fewer than a quarter of these remain. Similar levels of pond loss have occurred across farmland in Europe and North America, associated with increasing intensification of agriculture. Pond and hedgerow loss are often linked as hedges are uprooted and used to fill in ponds, before ploughing over the entire area.

A ghost pond in north Norfolk prior to resurrection.
Emily Alderton, Author provided

Many lost ponds leave behind a “ghostly” mark in the landscape – visible as damp depressions, areas of poor crop cover, or changes in soil colour. Colleagues and I have recently discovered that these buried “ghost ponds” are not completely lost, but can be resurrected from historic seeds lying dormant underneath intensively cultivated agricultural fields.

These ghosts are an abundant yet overlooked conservation resource. Resurrecting them would of course mean more ponds, which in turn links up aquatic landscapes as plants and animals jump from pond to pond and species are able to thrive in larger populations. But the main advantage of a ghost pond, compared to a new pond, is the historic seed bank buried below the surface. This provides a source of local native species, speeding up the process of colonisation, and potentially restoring lost populations or even locally extinct species to the resurrected pond.

We already knew that aquatic seeds were able to survive dormant for centuries within existing lakes and wetlands. Scientists recently tested 13 lakes in Russia, for instance, and found stoneworts (a keystone species in aquatic habitats), could grow from 300 year-old spores collected from lake sediments.

However, our recent paper, published in the journal Biological Conservation, is the first to demonstrate this astonishing survival ability within habitats which had been assumed lost to agriculture. In our study, we resurrected three ghost ponds in north Norfolk, eastern England. These ponds were similar in type, location and surrounding land use to the 8,000-plus ghost ponds buried across Norfolk and many more across the UK. While buried, ghost ponds are subject to the typical stresses of intensive agriculture (soil compaction, fertiliser and herbicide use), making the long-term survival of their aquatic seed banks particularly astonishing.

Our three study ponds had been buried for around 45, 50 and 150 years. Each was re-excavated down to the pond’s historic level, which was easily distinguished from the overlying topsoil by its dark colour, silty texture, and even its distinctive “pond smell”. This layer of sediment was left mostly undisturbed to provide the source of historic seeds and eggs within each pond.

The ‘resurrection’ of a ghost pond; a) First, a trench is dug to locate the historic pond b) aquatic and wetland plant seeds found in the historic sediment then rapidly colonise the pond c) one year after ‘resurrection’ Emily Alderton, Author provided

All three ghost ponds were colonised within six months by native plant species. In total, 12 species of aquatic plant colonised the ghost ponds and eight of these species proved to have originated from the seeds that had lain dormant below the ground. To check these plants really had grown from the ghostly remains of the previous pond, and hadn’t been carried in by the wind or seed-eating birds, we kept some of the historic sediment in sealed aquariums. There, even under controlled conditions, the same species still grew out of this centuries-old sediment.

Species recolonising from the historic seed bank included stoneworts, which are important for maintaining water quality but are increasingly threatened in farmland, and floating leaved pondweeds, which provide key habitat for dragonflies and damselflies. We also found crustaceans including Daphnia (water fleas), and copepods (tiny invertebrates which swim in a jumpy motion using their antennae), were able to hatch from eggs buried in the ghost pond sediment samples.

a & b) Stoneworts and broad leaved pondweed growing from 50-year old sediment c) A germinating rush seed, sieved from 150-year old sediment. Emily Alderton, Author provided

Although only common species were resurrected from the sediments of our three ghost ponds, these included seeds of all different sizes and types – from a variety of aquatic plant species. This suggests that a wide range of plants, including potentially rare or even locally extinct species, could potentially survive within the buried sediments of ghost ponds. The boost to recolonisation speed and diversity from the historic seed and egg bank may also reduce the risk of invasive species becoming established.

The ConversationGhost ponds represent abundant yet overlooked biological time capsules. Their restoration could facilitate the rapid return of wetland habitats and aquatic plants into the agricultural landscape. This process could play a significant role in reversing some of the habitat and biodiversity losses caused by the global disappearance of agricultural wetlands – and I urge conservationists to make use of this valuable yet hitherto little considered resource.


Emily_Alderton

Emily Alderton, PhD student in Aquatic Ecology, University College London (UCL)

“I have recently completed my PhD on ‘ghost ponds’ in the Environmental Change Research Centre (ECRC), University College London. My research focuses on the historic propagule banks buried within former ponds (in-filled for agricultural land consolidation), and the role they might play in the resurrection of these lost habitats. I previously completed my MSc in Aquatic Science at UCL, and my thesis was on the diet of Eurasian otters at a UK upland lake.”


This article was originally published on The Conversation under a Creative Commons License. Read the original article.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Articles, Environment

Post navigation

PREVIOUS
Steve Frisch on Trump, Our National Embarrassment: “This Too Will Pass”
NEXT
Artist Gordon Pelton’s View of Trump: “A Thousand Flaws”

Join Our Mailing List

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

DONATE TO THE FOOD BANK OF NEVADA COUNTY

(CLICK IMAGE)

DONATE TO NEVADA COUNTY RELIEF FUND (click image below)

Erika Lewis, Shaye Cohn, Craig Flory – Got A Mind To Ramble

Jack Kornfield: A Steady Heart in Time of Corona Virus (Part I)

Tara Brach: A Steady Heart in Time of Corona Virus (Part II)

Subscribe to Sierra Voices Journal

Recent Posts

  • After the Desperate Ignorance of the Trump Years, Biden’s Words About Science Make Me Weep With Gratitude
  • Mask News We Can All Use
  • Chaos agent: Right-wing blames US Capitol riot on notorious instigator banished by Black Lives Matter
  • How to stop an Insurrection Caucus: These reforms could reduce GOP extremism and save our democracy
  • The U.S. Capitol raid was a failed self-coup previously seen in dying regimes

Recent Comments

  • (Posted by) Don Pelton on GOP Warns Dems About Court Packing (Cartoon)
  • Criminal Incompetence, Malignant Ignorance Will Lead to Hunger and Violence on A Nice Depression Now Benefits the GOP in 2022 and 2024
  • togel singapura hari ini on How Wall Street Has Turned Housing Into a Dangerous Get-Rich-Quick Scheme — Again
  • Ao Corrente on How Wall Street Has Turned Housing Into a Dangerous Get-Rich-Quick Scheme — Again
  • forex forum on How Wall Street Has Turned Housing Into a Dangerous Get-Rich-Quick Scheme — Again

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • November 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • December 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • January 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009

Categories

  • Aging
  • Articles
  • Atlas Obscura
  • Authoritarianism
  • Black Lives
  • Black Lives Matter
  • Blog
  • Buddhism
  • Cartoon
  • Climate Change
  • Corona Virus
  • Corruption
  • Disenfranchisement
  • Economics
  • Education
  • Election Fraud
  • Environment
  • Farming
  • Fascism
  • Fire!
  • Food Insecurity
  • Foreign Policy
  • Forest Management
  • Gender
  • Health Care
  • History
  • Humor
  • Hunger
  • Ignorance
  • Labor
  • Local
  • Masks
  • Medical Care
  • Men
  • Middle Class
  • Mining
  • MMT
  • Modern Monetary Theory
  • Music
  • Native Americans
  • Pandemic
  • Parenting
  • Poetry
  • Police
  • Politics
  • Press
  • Race
  • Reviews
  • Revolution
  • Right-wing terrorism
  • Russiagate
  • Science
  • Technology
  • Trump Virus
  • Tyranny
  • Uncategorized
  • Voting
  • War
  • War on Government
  • Water
  • Watersheds
  • Wildfires

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
© 2021   All Rights Reserved.