A question of scale

As you walk along the boardwalk here, take a moment to consider the tiny lives as well as the huge ones, such as the Manna Gums. This gully is home to everything from tiny spiders, to springtails, worms, native snails and pill bugs, plus many microscopic species. It has been estimated that up to an amazing 130,000 insects can live in the top 10cm of a one square metre space of forest soil! Many of these live in the leaf litter created by the giants of the bush. Not being able to travel far, many of these species will only live in one tiny geographical area: they are locally unique. 

Dragon Springtail
Credit: Nick Porch

An example of how the plants growing in the gully create the perfect environment for fleeting visitors is Sword sedge (Lepidosperma gladiatum) and Saw sedge (Ghania siberiana), which are home to the Sword-grass Brown Butterfly and the Sedge skipper butterflies. Adults lay their eggs on the leaves, which then provide a food source for the developing caterpillars.

Common Brown Butterfly Heteronympha merope

As we pass along the boardwalk, we are as fleeting as the water that passes beneath it. To the tiny creatures that we cannot see, we must appear impossibly large and slow.

To the trees, we are a mere flicker in their lifetimes, which see the changing of the seasons, flood and fire and drought over hundreds of years. 

Despite the different paces and scale of all these lives, we can have a huge impact on all these lifeforms, both big and small.