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September 4, 2018

The small things

BY: Ricardo Aguilar

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During the night and early in the morning, there were clouds of mosquitos, moths, flies, etc. all around us. Iit made me realize how important insects are for ecosystem.

Normally we do not pay much attention to small animals: insects, worms, leeches, amphipods… they are sometimes thousands of these individuals in any small area. Obviously, they are there for a reason. . They are food. They control insect overpopulation and the structure of the sediments, and they also create microhabitats.

And yes,  we are looking for key habitats like algae and marine plant forests, for seals, fish, snails, mussels… but we must not forget the other species that make the whole marine ecosystem work.

Today in the Vapplan area, we found fish like eelpout (Zoarces viviparus), three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), the European minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus), straight-nose pipefish (Nerophis ophidion), etc., as well as algae like wracks, some underwater plants, mollusks, and many similar small organisms.