USD Magazine, Spring 2004

B iology Professor Marie Simovich and a team of student researchers, including Amanda Frost (pic–

tured here), are using children's

splash pools on the science center roof to help

tore one

of San Diego's most important

natural environments.

Vernal pools are home to a

eluding tiny fairie

Gia! food source for

migrating waterfowl. Simovich's

team helps maintain a constant

..

population by keeping the fairie

shrimp eggs hydrated long

'

0

enough for them to mature and

"' \ .. I

hatch before returning them to

vernal pools not yet destroyed

,c>

by urban sprawl.

,. --

"It's not just the shrimp we

are helping to save from extinc–

tion, " Simovich says. "It is the

ecosystem."

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