285 : Migration of Vegetation Post Glaciation in Southern Ontario
I have been out with my students a lot in the past month and a half and it seems that every time we go out we are looking to the trees and shrubs that are growing in disturbed areas and likening these disrupted habitats to post glacial landscapes.
Some of my students are able to recognize the similarities between an urban construction/destruction site, and some are still picking it up. I always do my best to explain what I am seeing, I still don’t know much and wanted to go a little bit deeper, as always. For this show I share some of what I am learning about the migration of trees and different flora through southern Ontario after the glaciers receded.
On top of this, I wanted to note how these development sites also hold hope, and set examples for wild rejuvenation through random ecological assemblages and novel ecosystems in the face of uncertain futures of changing climates and infrastructure degradation.
Please appreciate the fun title as well.
To learn more :
After the Ice Age by E. C. Pielou. University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Ontario Forests : A Historical Perspective by K. A. Armsom. Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2001.
Wild Urban Plants of the NorthEast (2nd ed.) by Peter Del Tredici. Cornell University Press, 2020.
Legacy : A Natural History of Ontario edited by John B. Theberge. McClelland & Stewart, 1989.
