During the last ice age, a large glacier reigned over Canada and the northern United States. Plants and animals found within these regions shifted over time into areas that were free of ice and established themselves until the ice retreated. These areas were known as glacial refugia (Dyke, Moore , et al, 2003). A refugium is an isolated location inhabited with a segregated population of one or more species. Areas like these can be found in all corners of the earth and can contain very high amounts of biodiversity. These refugia form during climatic changes, such as global warming and may also form during changes in geography or human activity, such as deforestation (Leonard and Hogan, 2013). Forest pocket refuges are a specific kind of refuge that has a substantial impact on the distribution of the earth’s major forests. Pocket refuges provided a haven for forest migration during the glacial retreat from the Pleistocene to the Holocene era. Without these unique locations, many tree species would not have survived the climate shifts of the glacial period (Delcourt, 2002). Finding these pocket refuges today opens up a window into the past, but how can they be used in order to predict the future?
Forest pocket refuges are located all around the globe. A study was done by Buso and Pessenda regarding the regions of the Atlantic forest in Brazil. The experiment used sediment palynology and carbon isotopes of SOM to study vegetation dynamics and their relationship with climate changes. Other studies, based on molecular phylogeography and patterns of plant taxa distribution, have suggested that the Atlantic Forest was a forest refuge during the late Quaternary period (Busco, Pessenda, et al, 2013).. This evidence showed fo...
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Many old-growth forests across the landscape of northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan contain a mixture of tree species rather than a monoculture. Many researchers have put forward ideas to explain the competition and co-existence of tree species in such communities. A theory explaining competition and co-existence between two species is gap regeneration. Gap regeneration is when a gap is created upon death of a plant individual and a new individual, sometimes of the same species as died and sometimes not dependent on environmental heterogeneity, takes its place (Kenneth Lertzman). Canopy gaps during gap regeneration can be explained by either reciprocal replacement or habitat preference . In a reciprocal replacement, seedlings of one species would be found predominately under large trees ...
Tropical rain forests and temperate forests are two different types of forests. They differ in density, diversity of species, regions, altitudes and their usefulness to humans. This usefulness is referred to as values. The values obtained from forests are aesthetics, scientific and educational purposes. In addition forests have the ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide released into the air from man’s endeavours. This CO2 contributes to the sudden increase in global warming. The total value of a forest ecosystem is the combined value of each individual species living within that habitat.
The following paper will explore two different biomes: Boreal Forest and the Tropical Rainforest. An examination of these two biomes will provide an understanding of how these biomes exists and the various types and forms of processes that acted on it and are acting on it both biologically and through abiotic factors.
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Post, E., & Pedersen, C. (2008). Opposing plant community responses to warming with and without herbivores. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(34), 12353-12358.
...rticularly important in terms of climate change and its effects on plant distribution. It seems that spatial patterns of clusters dominated by arctic species (Luzula arcuata, Carex rupestris) are more threatened than those with significant proportion of boreal and temperate species. Callaghan et al. (2004) stressed that arctic species will be most vulnerable to the climate change. They argued that ecological amplitude of arctic taxa will narrow and abundance decrease during climate warming.
published in mid-August by researchers at Duke University in North Carolina and the U.S.-based non-governmental organisations Save America’s Forests and Land Is Life
Tropical rainforests which is located between tropic of Capricorn and tropic of Cancer covered 12% of land surface few thousand years ago. However, today they o...
...onald P., Pitelka, Louis F., Solomon, Allen M., Nathan, Ran, Midgley, Guy F., Fragoso, Jose M.V., Lischke, Heike & Thompson, Ken. (2005, September). Forecasting regional to global plant migration in response to climate change. BioScience 55(9), 749(11).
The Western forests are drastically different from what they were like before the European settlement. In pre-European time, the forests were open and park-like with only 25-35 trees per acre surrounded by areas of open grasslands. One could easily ride a horse through the spacious forest. This, however, is not possible in today's forests. Today, for example the Ponderosa pine forests, have over 500 trees per acre, creating thick dense areas of trees, brush, and bushes (President Bush, 4). The pre-European forests were subject to frequent low inte...
Rainforests once covered 14% of the worlds land surface, however now it only covers a mere 6%. It is estimated that all rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. Trees are becoming more needed and used everyday. We need them cut down for many reasons such as paper and timber, while also needing them ‘untouched’ for other reasons like oxygen, we have to ask ourselves, which is more important? At the current rate, most of the rainforests are being cut down for resources like paper and timber, but less importance is being placed on main resources like oxygen.
“Healthy forests help absorb greenhouse gasses and carbon emissions that are caused by human civilization and contribute to global climate change. Without trees, more carbon and greenhouse gasses enter the...
Fearnside, Philip M. "Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: History, Rates, and Consequences." Conservation Biology 19.3 (2005): 680-688. Print.