Graduate student Ben Walters is moving to Campbellcroft from Port Hope to be closer to the three-year project in the northern reaches of the Municipality of Port Hope. It involves another Trent graduate, nine technicians and research assistants and two Trent professors working with study leader and biology professor, Dr. Erica Nol.
The findings here will be transferable to other areas along the Oak Ridges Moraine in Southern Ontario the county-owned Northumberland Forest, Nol said as rain soaked the Ganaraska Forest behind her. Some of the information will be pertinent to managing forests, she noted.
Northumberland County is in the midst of creating a new master plan for its own which is a plantation forest on either side of County Road 45 north of Baltimore.
The university-based study began with cores of snow being taken this past winter with an auger-like device to determine the amount which fell and remained, as well as when rain came instead of snow, running off the lands without being absorbed. During the past 20 years less snow has fallen and the study is to determine if this has impacted the forest trees, the insects that inhabit them and the birds that feed on the insect, she explained.
"The hypothesis is that the fewer insects, the fewer birds," she said simplifying one of the study's themes.
The study will look at the changes in precipitation on sandy soils, gravelly ones and loam used primarily for agricultural purposes.
The team is searching for these within the Ganaraska Forest north of County Road 9 and in nearby private forest lands.
An expensive probe will be used to check soil moisture at 90 sites this summer and this work will be overseen by hydrologist, Dr. James Buttle of Trent's geography department working with Dr. Shawun Watmough, a soil expert, world-recognized in the effects of acid rain on soil, Nol said.
Another hypothesis being tested is where there has been a depletion of accessible calcium for bird eggs because metals falling as acid bond with the calcium in the ground making it inaccessible to the birds.
Both the Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority and the Ministry of Natural Resources are supporters of the study.
"Our ultimate objective is to construct a predictive model that will allow us to identify the most productive forest types and slope positions for long-term persistence of the avian community and forest sustainability," Nol states in a media release.
A major part of reaching those findings involves researchers looking into the bird population in the forest and what changes are taking place.
Coincidentally, during the visit to the Ganaraska Forest for the interview, a mocking bird was sighted. The black and white bird with its unusually long tail is normally not found this far north, Nol and Walters agreed.
"The forest cleans the water for Port Hope," Nol said of another aspect of the study. It will look how reduced snow cover affects this and involves evaluating stream flows southward from the forest to the municipality.
"It's (a) fairly complicated (study)" and findings will be published during the three years it is underway, culminating in a model that can be used in other Southern Ontario forests, she concluded.
The Ganaraska Forest is the single largest tract of forest cover in the settled area of southern Ontario and contains more avian biodiversity.
Effects of climate change in forest examined - Northumberland Today - Ontario, CA.
No comments:
Post a Comment