Site Discussions

Steve,

I enjoyed the article on the toxicity of amphibian skin.  Since many wading birds and some snakes eat toads and frogs, do they have a way of neutralizing the effects of the secreted skin chemicals?

Your story has me thinking back to last weekend where, north of the camp on Whiskey Brook by Island Pond, a skilled teamster and a strong Belgian mare yarded our cow moose roadside without incident. Best luck to those still looking to fill tags!

great article, I am a teacher and referred to it in biology class!

In the mid-1950’s, my dad hand-dug and transplanted three 1” diameter maple trees from a rural roadside location into our front yard in western NY state. He chose the trees because of their colors: yellow, red and orange. The trees have changed to those same original colors each autumn for more than 50 years, as I assume all maple trees do. Perhaps we are being misled that there is some advantage to being red or orange. The color change may just be an unintended consequence of the production of anthocyanins for a completely different purpose.

I have been developing and testing a system of stand structure classification for stands in the southern and central interior of British Columbia since 2003.  This has grown into a PhD thesis at the Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia.  The concept is based on reverse cumulative distributions of trees per hectare and basal area per hectare with respect to increasing diameter (i.e. basal area and numbers of trees per hectare greater than or equal to a diameter threshold, where the threshold increases from 0 cm dbh up to a maximum dbh.  The classification was built using these metrics in a cluster algorithm.  I have built a compiler to classify new plots and/or stands.  I have evaluated the classification in the PhD for the purpose of looking at different stand succession patterns, and I have used it to characterize forest inventories extending over 1 million hectares.  I think that much of the complexity you speak of can be related to these distributions, particularly when they are extended to account for differences in species composition. I hope to finish my work at UBC in the spring of 2012.

I have several butternut trees on my 20 acres here in western PA. Some are advanced in their canker disease, but still producing nuts. This year many of the nuts had husks that were very full of bright yellow maggots. I have been unable to find anything about these prolific worms. I am most curious to know what they are and what they will turn into. They do not seem to be harmful to the nuts, but make the job of husking rather revolting.  Anyone know what they are ? thanks, Tom

Be it protection from insects or UV rays, fact remains that “since the leaves are pretty well spent and about to be discarded, wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper for the tree just to let them get chomped?”

Surely the observation that foliage is more brilliant in years with sunny autumns should lead to all manner of PhD research projects to investigate the reasons for such associations.

In my neck of the woods we have lovely autumn colours too, but I take my hat off to the Appalachian area, which succeeds brilliantly every fall without any help from the Local Lords of Commerce.

Get out and enjoy!

Hi Pamela

As far as I know sturgeon are only found below the Turners Falls dam in Montague and I was only writing about the river from the Mass border up river to the Lakes. You are right though they are an astounding fish and some few can be seen from time to time in the raceways at the Conte Research facility in Turners Falls.

david

Rhodoxanthin is another red pigment, found in conifers and lower vascular plants (and is the pigment in the “fruit” of Taxus or yew), and is thought to protect chlorophyll from photooxidation. (that was my conclusion from my Ph.D. research on Selaginella many years ago)  But this is lipid soluble and found in the chloroplasts (like the carotenoids).  Anthocyanin, however is water soluble and is in the cytoplasm.  Thus it may be protecting the metabolic machinery or DNA rather than protecting the chloroplasts.  This makes sense, since it is the energy derived from mitochondria (as directed by DNA/RNA) that will be needed to carry out the process of carbohydrate transfer to the stem.

I really liked this, but was quite surprised that Mr Deen failed to mention the mighty sturgeon that are known to live in the darker, deeper depths of the Connecticut.

Thoroughly enjoyed this article.

Your article reminded me of an article in the New Yorker years ago about the evolution of the apple tree.  The author traveled to a location in western Asia perhaps the Carpathians where apples grow wild.  I seem to remember it being mentioned that ice storms were common in the area.  It occurred to me that human pruning of apples tend to mimic the effect of ice storms.  If you want to see the effects of continuous ice storms look at the vegetation in the Niagara Gorge just down stream of the falls.  The freezing mist makes the trees and bushes look like a giant has crumbled them and in a way it looks like they have been pruned like an orchard.  As our cold dusty snow winter climate warms up to one with more ice storms I wonder if birches that gather ice so eagerly will give way to compound leaved trees with thick twigs more adapted to an ice loading.  Not a good time for the ash trees to be eliminated from our woods.

There’s a terrific amount of knolwegde in this article!

Hi Laurie.

I suggest you check out the USDA’s plant database online. They have distribution maps that will surely help you with your research. http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=MOUN3

I guess you are “American”. Your account of the measurement is very good, clear, concise and useful. But in paragraphs 4 and 5 you show your flag colours. If it was long established in Europe, first, and then standarized at 1.3 m; why don’t you use that? If “Europe, Canada and most of the rest of the world” agree, why do you do it differently?
Thanks for sharing.

I’m doing a book on the state flowers of America, and I like to add in interesting plants/animals where I can - does anyone know which states specifically these plants grow in?  At the moment, I’m working on New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Illinois - so if anyone knows for sure that they grow there, it would help me.  Thanks, Laurie

Great piece. I’m always amazed by what we simply fail to see or appreciate. When I was in ag school (long ago), I remember creating quite a controversy in class by asking the simple question “What about the worms?” We’d be in sorry shape without them, even though many are non-native, and all the other parts of the complex “organism” called soil. Thanks for a great peek under the hand lens!

Hi Megan - will read your complete letter when time permits.  Was looking at what in the woods is that and saw the stumping entry.  I have an entry I want to submit, but that’s another story.  What I wanted to alert your readers to is an interesting web site ... http://www.leafsnap.com  It has very good resolution for tree ID of leafs, seeds (fruit), bark, etc.  It’s an ongoing project to have all the trees of the Eastern US in its species list.check it out.

WISH YOU THE VERY BEST !! 
I TRUELY INJOY NORTHERN WOODLANDS SUBSCRIPTION.

If a person is allergic to birch trees and uses a throat spray with this ingredient…what would be the consequence?  Would the person have an allergic reaction?  Could the fungus grow in the person’s throat or lungs?