Ecology notes 1

Hierarchical biogeographical objectives cont...    9 biomes  Olson subdivide to create 14 subdivisions  One of such biomes is the Boreal Forest  Canada's 1/3 is boreal forest, large biome  One of the important biomes in northern hemisphere   There are 2 main parameters driving the classification of these biomes  THe amount of percipitation  THe temperature  Boreal Forest  Global Distribution   Large swat of the northern hemisphere  Canada is very beneficial?  Main feature, wetland  Wetland type: peat bogs,   Important for world's heat absorption and carbon cycling, huge Carbon storage   Can also source carbon  Underlain by permafrost, thaws seasonally up to 1m, the top 1m  Due to climate change we got more than seasonal warming  Trees have shallow roots in active soil layer  They lean in all directions, like drunken trees  Dominated by conifers, with some deciduous  They look like little sticks  Very dynamic system because natural disturbances such as wildfires(lightning), windstorms, insect infestations,  normally kills stands and then regenerate: ecosystem succession  Almost all provinces have boreals  Only maritime doesn't have it  Plants adapted to living in cold dry conditions  Coniferous trees: shed snow easily, retain their leaves,needles, throughout winter, thick waxy coating of needles minimize waterloss, even when there is water, sometimes frozen  Ex. FIRS, pines, spruces, hemlocks, larch, all hagve cones as their fruits  Some cones, jack pines, will not release seeds until heated in forest fire  Other ground cover plants, moss, and lichen can tolerate desiccation?  Fire in boreal  During droughts, fires natural set burn trees and soils, when firefighting stops, fuel can accumulate and lead to mega fires such as the ones we have seen recently.   We need fires overtime, to dispose of the accumulating fuel  Animals in boreal  Carnivores include: gray wolf(canada), felines like bobcat, lynx, siberian tiger (asia and russia)  Herbivores include elk, wapiti, and moose, wood bison endangered, caribou (too much?)  Small mammals: snowshoe hare, porcupine, adapted to cold dry conditions  Help disperse seeds across the land  Snowshoe hare preyed by lynx  Ecozones  Boreal Shield  Taiga Shield  Hudson plains  Hudson bay complex, etc...  Ecozones are broken down from the biome of boreal forest  Ecozone: Similar to biomes in being extensive in area and mapped based on ecological similarities  Differ in prominent species and enduring attributes relating to bedrock, soil, and landforms, and type of human activities  Ecozones include human activities  Integrate natural features, and influences with human socioeconomic ones  More appropriate for conservation, distinctive terrestrial marine ecozones of Canada  Ecoregions  Are sub of ecozones and have distinctice climatic conditions and landforms  Eco Region   Can divide into ecodistricts  Ecosections  Ecosites  Ecoelements   Carolinian Canada – Carolinian Life Zone  Terrestrial and 5 marine ecozones in Canada  On ontario, three main ecozones: hudson plains, boreal shield mixedwood plains …..  Ecozones: Key abiotic processes operated on order of thousands to millions of years  Ecoregions: similar climatic conditions and landforms that govern vegetation types substrate and biota  Eco districs: regional level for strategic planning  Ecosections: broad habitat trends, forests, land uses; watershed planning  Ecosites: ecosystem mapping and wildlife habitat conservation; sub-watershed planning  Ecoelements: Stand level: environmental assessment habitat evaluation biotic inventories   Ecoregions within central and southern ontario are have the ecozones  EASTERN  and northern georgian bay coastal wetlands  Have a land cover: The Canadian Shield, with a very shallow soil  When soil is burned takes long time to regenerate due to canadian shield rock being underneath the surface  Urbanized wetlands of Lake Ontario: Lake Simcoe  South: Agriculturally influenced wetlands of Lake Erie  Mixwood plains occupy 2.2% of Ontario  Climate is mildest in Canada  Cool winters, long hot humid summers  Used to be completely convered by forests and some grasslands  Now cities are built around forest wetlands and grasslands  Mostly flat excpet Niagara escarpment  80% converted to cropland, pasture, and urban land  Vegetation usedto be mostly decisuous forests with tall-grass prairies and savannahs   Few old growth forests- not logged post european  Remnant large coastal marsshes in LOng point, Rondeau, Pelee  Old Growth Forest: non-up and down,   A lot of litter, soft ground, not all decomposed, so ypou could sleep on it   Forest floor is whole ecosystem component  Some birds nest on ground, oven bird need litter on floor to nest   250-300 y old   Various ages of trees, indicated by diameter at breast, with some more than 300-499  Large downed trees; leaning and gnarly trees  Soft thick layer of organic leave litter; undisturbed forests have no earthworms (brought over by Europeans)  If you bring earthworms, you lose softness of the forest, because they eat like crazy  Quiet enough, you can hear earthworms chewing through forests  Earthworms are not all good  Native to north America, but more south  Fat worms, are not native to here   High diversity: multi-layer canopy, subcanopy, herbaceous shrubs and all round ground cover  We want diversity, because they are more able to withstand disturbances  When one dies off, 3-4 others can take its place   Vernal Pools: seasonal pools of water that provide habitat for distinctive plants and animals   New growth: look structured due to plantations   Just the ground, cant sleep on it   40-50 y old   Backue woods  Vernal Pools  Active Decay  Biodiversity in MixWood plains  Longest growing days in canada  Forests in north are mixesd coniferous and deciduous while those in the south are deciduous Carolinian forests  Because of forests and wetlands, biodiversity in region is extremely high, with highest concentration of species at risk (SAR) fond in Ecoregion 7E (1-6). Some SAR occur in remnant Carolinian forests  Forests in the north are a mix of coniferous and deciduous  Forests in the south are deciduous carolinian forests     Carolinian life zone extends from Carolinas to southern Ontario  Carolinana canada occupies less than 1% of cana   but account for more flora and fauna than any other ecosystem in canada, despite great loss in natural core areas  Carolinana Indicator species  Can get research money to try and save them  Indicator species found in carolinana forests but nowhere else in canada  Native species: are evolved in the carolinana life zone but that are found elsewhere in canada  Species at RISK: native species that are endangered or could be extirpated  Extirpated: local extinction   Animals  Oppossom  Spouthern flying squirrel  Red bellied woodpecker   Carolina wren  Eastern hognose snake  Eastern spiny soft shell turtle  Landcover Classification Case Studies  Dr. Chantel Markle:  Gillian Chow-Frazer: Leader of northern alberta caribou program  Morgan piczak: Using spatial approaches to examine threats facing common snapping turtles     There are some at-risk herpetofauna in Ontario  Especially within point pelee  Spotted turtle has disappeared  Some snakes as well  90% species at risk are due to habitat loss  Protected areas serve the purpose of saving these species   IUCN defines this as recognized space dedicated and managed through legal or other means to achieve long term conservation of nature  National park  Provincial park  Wilderness areas  Privately owned pare: royal botanical garden  Land trusts  Aichi Target: By 2020, all countries aim to protect 17% of terrestrial land and 10% marine land   Probably not gonna be met  Protected areas are like islands  Metapopulation ire populations that are of same species but are seperated by space  If the islands of land are too far away, populations can't reach the area and repopulate them   EcoRegion 7E   Has highest species richness in the province  Areas with least protected area have the richest species diversity     Mixwood plain ecozone  There are 6 ecodistricts  7E1: Point Pelee  POint of land called sand spit  formed by erosion by water  Juts out into lake Erie  Because it is erosive and dynamic, the point of the tip is always changing  Subjective to intrusion of lake water, since water can reach very high, and pass barriers  Coastal Wetland complex  Special protection because it has more biodiveristy than normal  Because a lot of species are fish that use it, so you get all the terrestrial species and the aquatic species  Point Pelee long point, all share where migratory birds frequent  Point Pelee is a Lake Erie coastal wetland complex  Essex county (agricultural)  decreased from 83.4% to about 1.6% from 1800 to 2002  Marsh Complex was 3633 ha in 1880  But in mid 1880s europeans migrated and since then it has started to drain and used for agriculture  The tip of Pelee is the southern most point of Canadian mainland within Carolinian Canada   PPNP: Point Pelee National Park  Established in 1918 to provide refugium for species  One of only a few refugia in heavily agricultural region  Despite status of being protected Area, 5 amphibians, 6 snakes, and 1 turtle have dissappeared  Hypothesis: they were approached by the park to figure out why protected area wasn't doing its job  Hypothesis: Island of protected area to far away from other species living areas, thus metapopulation cant help this population  Hypothesis: Habitat in the protected area is too degraded and/or has been transformed from suitable to unsuitable (less suitable)  Quantify the changes to the point Pelee  Study Approach:   1: Use available air photos to determine long term changes within the Point  2:  Image data   spanned 85 years  1931-2004 black and white  2010-2015 true color  Manual digitized habitat classes  Use existing ecological landscape classification Dougan and Associtae  Fins what landcover lclasses are appropriate  2010 LANDCOVER MAp  How to out of 30 classes can be combined to strengthen   how many important for reptile conservation   Preferred habitat: wetlands, meadows, open water, and sandy substrate   Impediment to turtles  Two emergent plants that can be problematic  Phragmites australis haplotype M invade coastal wetlands toward late 1990s   Typh xglauca (hybrid of T.latifolia  And T.angustifolia (non-native)  Both grow into dense dominant patches that are difficult for wildlife, tutles to move through, for ex. from marshes to meadows  Habitat Types  Open water, farb    Nesting habitats: road, sand  Coastal wetlands are very dynamic depending on th esize and water level of the lake  High water:lose the size of the park  Low water, increase the size of the park  Total park area even after water was down, there was a decrease in park size   So gradual decline in park size  Due to erosion of beaches  Lake Erie WL significantly correlated with shoreline & barren/dune area  There is a general increase in cattails beds replacing the graminoid and forb shallow marshes, that are interspersed with water.  These are very important because reptiles require them for overwintering habitat  Forests have taken over meadow and savanna.   Ecosystem start with grasses, then trees establish and expands  Natural colonization  Constructed areas have almost been elminated there are no more cottages allowed in the park  Landscape  Patch size and number  1950: 68 ha and 26 patches  2015:186 ha and 8 patches  Means that lower diversity of different types of habitat  Landscape has overall become less diverse more homogenous  Homo is bad  Replacement of open water by cattails, is bad because prevent movement from habitat patch to patch  Invasive Phagmites australis  They have increased, from 2004 #4 density 0.27, to 166, 11.21 in 2015   Spotted turtle has not been seen in park since 1990  HAbitat require: sandy beaches   We meadows and marshes for foraging and overwintering  Batita quality and quantity have changed since 1930s  Hybrid cattail marshes expand taking meadows and beaches  Phragmites colonized park  Chelydra serpentina  Highly recognizable  Important link between aquatic and terrestrial eosystems  Susceptible to anthopogenic threats due to life history traits  Late secual maturaity  Low reqruitment  Reliance on low adult mortality  Ontario SARA status: special concern, very recent   Major Threats  Loss, alteration and fragmentation of habitat  Harvesting, persecution and poaching  Meso- predators (raccoons)  Phragmites  Sewage effluent, disease and pharmaseuticlas  Road mortality  Degredation of cootes paradise marsh  Historically supported one of the most dense populations of SNTU in southern Ontario  Shoreline modified extensively  Surrounding land uses changed  Increased human population, increased traffic volume   Critical Habitat  Habitat esential for an organism to carry otut necessary life functions   Nesting habitat   To support reqruitment into population   Overwintering habitat  To allow them to survive the winter   habitat suitable for nesting  Loose soil, sand, and gravel, that occur naturally along stream banks  Features created by humans such as road sides, agricultural fields, gardens, or gravel piles  During late spring, after females have mated mulitpl, they migrate from their resident marsh sites in western Cootes Paradise to find suitable nesting sites where they can deposit their eggs   Home range determination  Capture 10 snapping turtles opportunistically  6 male 4 female 2017  Equipped each turtle with radio-tags  Notched shells to identify individuals  Recorded location, weight, sex, size, age, measurements  Based on at least 24 tracked locations over the year, determined home range of the turtle population   Radio – Tracking program  Used movements to figure find interactions with the road  Cootes drive,   Olumpics drive  King street East  Chronological straight lines between relocations  364 points, Core is 45.1 ha and the 100% MCP is 278.1 ha   Use of Geograohic information system(GIS) in landscpape ecology  Both case studies rely on use of GIS to detect habitat changes   Change Detection  Is a standardized method to determine how a given area has changed between two time periods (1934 and 2015)  Importing into GIS, aerial photos or satellite images taken during two time periods at exactly the same location (same seasong if possible)  Transformation from one class to another will reveal:  Change in location, size and number of particular landcover classes