The Algonquin Highlands (GL-SL) Flashcards
What lies on top of this dome?
Algonquin Provincial park (established in 1893), 3000 square ft, established in 1993
Did the elevation used to be higher or lower than it is today?
It used to be 20-30 kms higher than today’s elevations (ancient mountain range, worn down to its current height)
What do the algonquin highlands lie atop?
A batholith, which is a body of rock that formed underground and is more 100 square km’s
Who exploits pine cones?
Red winged crossbills and red squirrels
Which side of Algonq park is most popular for porcupines?
The eastern side, because there is better food supply there, and they do not like maple trees
What kind of birds build nests in poplars?
yellow bellied Sapsuckers
Which predator eats baby woodpeckers?
Black bears
Which fish are found here?
Trout, bass and wall eye pike
Which mammal is a shoreline hunter?
Mink
Which native fish is not found in western algonq waters?
Walleye pike
Which calcium loving flowers grow on the eastern side of Algonquin park?
Cardinal flower, purple fringed orchid
What is the Brent crater
Meteor crash site
What is the name of the calciphilic fern that grows in Algonq
Bulblet fern
What is the elevation on the west side of Algonquin?
Reaches 600m above sea level
Does the eastern side have higher or lower elevations than the west?
Lower, 200 m above sea level
Different rivers start in algonquin park- How does the dome effect them?
Some flow west, some flow north, some south and some east because of the dome
Why is the biodiversity so rich?
Blend of southern habitats (like hardwood forests) and mixed forests with coniferous trees, floating peatlands, lakes, creeks, rivers which creates a rich biodiversity. The elevation allows the northern plants and animals to survive.
Does the western or eastern side receive more precipitation?
The west side is higher and receives more precipitation
What type of forest dominates the west side?
Hardwood forest that blazes orange and red during the fall
What type of forest dominates the east side?
Pine forest that blazes green all year round
Why is there a difference from west to east?
The glacial history (glacial till). The Till retains moisture that maples and other hardwoods need (not as sopping wet as clay). The east side received great beds of sand and less moisture, which a pine forest can survive on.
Why did the glacial spillway pass through and leave outwash plants only on the east side of Algonquin?
Due to elevation on the west side
Maple dominated hardwood forests have several layers of life, what are they?
The canopy, the shrub layer, the forest floor and the ground level
What is the Barron Canyon
The only real cliff in ON. Part of the Petawawa system. Cliff rocks have started to break down, a talus slope is when rocks have broken off and fallen down the cliff. Lichens often colonize these rocks, ex sunburst lichens
What birds nest at Barron Canyon?
Barn swallows, eastern phoebes (use moss to nest) and peregrine falcons (only within the last three years)
Subarctic disjuncts
Subarctic crustaceans are found in Algonquin, they need shady and cold conditions. Glacial relicts
What is the oldest tree in North America that grows in Algonquin park?
Cedars. They are important food for white tailed deer, the deer especially like to eat white cedar. . They eat it in the winter by grazing and create a browse line (no cedar leaves around bottom of tree)
Why are maple keys important?
they are food, deer mouse, woodland jumping mouse (follow the cycles of maple keys) and eastern chipmunks benefit from them
What type of chipmunks are abundant?
Eastern chipmunks are abundant (follow the population of the maple keys and benefit from them)
How do wolves hunt?
At night, in packs. They are social animals that hunt cooperatively
What do wolves feed on?
Moose, deer and beavers
What trees do bears benefit from?
Bears can climb trees to get up to the top of canopy and break branches to eat beech nuts. Create bear nests on older beeches.
How long is wolves’ gestation period?
9 wks, they mate in late February
What is the name of wolves’ summer home?
Rendezvous site. There is always a parent within earshot to protect the pups. The sites change location depending on food supply
Are peatlands present?
Yes, because of the elevation and the algonquin dome
Peatland plants present here
Bunchberry, leatherleaf, labrador tea, carnivorous plants
Black backed woodpeckers
Reach their southern boundary here
Northern birds found in Algonquin Park
Boreal chickadee, gray jay
How do plants deal with the thick layer of dead leaves on the forest floor?
Animals that store seeds like chipmunks disperse seeds below the dead leaf layer
Seeds that land on old longs can germinate and plants grow out of it, called Nurse logs (yellow birch called pirched birch when it grows out of an old log
Where are they majority of the beavers?
on the eastern side of the park, because waters are richer here and allow beavers to create their habitats easily
Is a lake a still-water system or current?
Both, parts of the system are sheltered, allowing for water lilies to grow, and for bull, green and mink frogs to live. Other parts of the system have alot of current action, with a habitat more similar to rivers. Smartweed grows along shores, aquatic insects live here
What are the lake layers?
Epilimneon: top layer
Hypolimneon: bottom layer, about 4* celsius, most dense layer
Thermocleim: middle layer
What is Lake turnover (describe the process)
lakes dont freeze to the bottom. The top layer freezes, the coldest temp of water in winter is directly under the ice near the surface. The density of water is unusual, allowing the water to be 4* at the bottom and 0 at the top. Water is at its densest capacity when it is 4. In the spring, the surface warms to 4, wind creates current that causes a turnover. The water at the bottom rises, and the water at the surface sinks. Nutrients are brought up to the surface, oxygen is added to the water and brought down. Some bacteria start breaking down plant and animal material with oxygen, other dont need oxygen to break down
Lakshore habitat
home for speckled alders, sandpipers and mink
What kind of environment do speckled alders like?
Nutrient poor areas, they have root nodules for fixing nitrogen
What lives in maple leaves and exploits them? (part of canopy layer)
Maple spindle gall mites
What caterpillars eat the outside of the leaf? (canopy)
Maple spruceworms
What types of birds glean on insects in the canopy?
Scarlet tanagers and red eye vireo
What type of Frog can change colours to match a tree?
Gray tree frog and it is freeze tolerant so it can spend the winter in a frozen state
Why are maple keys important?
they are food
What is a common owl living in the west?
Barred owl
What facing slope do American Beeches grow on?
American beeches grow on south facing slopes (because its warmer). Can succour off their own roots (like layering but a different process). Young beech trees retain leaves all year round
What is found in the shrub layer?
Striped maple- Large leaves (also called moose maple), The most common shrub is called beaked hazel, lower to the ground and has big nuts that provide food for bears and chipmunks, Wood thrush, Black throated blue warbler
What are the two major problems that exist for all plants living on the forest floor?
Shade and the thick layer of compressed, dead leaves.
What is an adaptation for forest floor plants
Adaptations: large leaves and blooming early called spring ephemerals, The penalty for early bloomers it that you might get frost and snow
What trilliums are present in Algonquin park?
White trilliums not present in Algonquin park because its too acidic and cold but painted trilliums and red trilliums (most common in the hard wood forest)
How do seeds get dispersed on the forest floor?
Ants disperse the seeds (they are attached to it due to elaisomes)
Indian pipe
mycorrhizal association through the roots, lives somewhat as a parasite plant
What trees rules supreme in the eastern side of Algonquin
Pines. White pines are not shade tolerant, they can tolerate partial shade and grew in burned areas, jack pine
What birds are present on the ground level?
Ovenbird warbler, Ruffed grouse, Hairy woodpecker, downy woodpecker, white breasted nuthatch, brown creeper, great crested fly catcher
What is one of the most abundant group of vertebrates in the hardwood forest?
Spotted salamanders
Are sugar maples shade tolerant>
Sugar maples are shade tolerant to a certain degree, and replace themselves through time but only one of so many makes it. Maple forests can be considered a climax forest, because maples replace maples until there is a major contributor like fire.
How do you tell Red maples apart from sugar maples?
Most red maples have trees that are only male or only female. Male red maples turn red in the autumn, female red maples turn yellow. Another way to tell them apart, is that moose take off strips of red maple with their antlers.
Fungi appear on ____ trees
older
What does bracket fungus do?
Helps decompose the wood
what are fungus gnat larvae?
tiny little flies that lay their eggs on fungus and the little maggots eat that fungus
Great crested fly catcher
cavity adopter. Benefits from older trees and woodpecker activity.
Brown Creeper
Brown creeper- they creep up the tree trunk abut they are very cryptic/camouflaged, they look in crevasses. Resource niche partitioning, one tree has insects in it but there are a variety of ways birds can access those insects
Flying squirrels
They are present in the tree canopy and ground level, northern and southern flying squirrels
What owls are present?
Barred owl, and saw wood owl
What does the great diversity of fungi help with?
Decompose the fallen trees
What are special about red backed salamanders?
(females) use rotting logs, they hang their eggs in a basket in them. They need damp humidity to lay their eggs, they depend on the old logs for reproduction.
What are ephemeral ponds?
Pools of water form in the woods. They dry up in the summer. They are great spots for egg laying, because there are no fish or predators.
Eastern Hemlocks
(coniferous tree) do not occur in the boreal forest. They occur in cool and moist soil. They have little seeds, and little cones. They grow on old logs and stumps because their seeds cannot get through the dense leaf layer. Nurse logs and ground fires are especially important for eastern hemlock (and yellow birch).
What birds are found in hemlocks and referred to as the hemlock associates?
black throated green warbler (needles are green on coniferous trees) and black burnian warbler and golden crowned kinglet
Hemlocks have sap, what animals does this attract?
Yellow-bellied sap sucker - Create a series of holes called wells, There would not be many hummingbirds without the sap suckers, The sap also attracts moths and wasps
Hemlock cones are very small, what little finches are specialized for plucking out seeds from small cones?
The pine siskin
What type of tree is gone from Algonquin park because they were cut down?
White pine
What trees rules supreme in the eastern side of Algonquin
Pines. White pines are not shade tolerant, they can tolerate partial shade and grew in burned areas,
What is the soil like in the pine forests?
The soil is very acidic in pine forests because the pine needles fall onto the ground level.
What could be a dominant group of plants growing in this tough, exposed soil? (pine forest soil, eastern algonquin)
Lichens, Club moss
What wildflowers grow in Pine forests? (acidic soil)
Pink lady slippers are abundant, clintonia (blue bead lilly), bunchberry, canada may flower.
What eats the needles of pine trees?
Sawfly larvae (caterpillar like)- red headed pine sawfly larvae, Red cross bills Pine sawyer
Where do yellow bellied sap suckers nest?
Yellow bellied Sap sucker excavate holes in poplar trees and nest there. The main predator of baby sap suckers is bears
Where are Jack pines dominant?
Near lake travers jack pines are dominant
What birds benefit from jack pine?
Spruce grouse and kirkland’s warblers (nesting just outside of the jack pine forest in the last ten years, their habitat will be replenished because of the fires) benefit from jack pines
What animals benefit from the acorns of red oak?
Red squirrels and black bears benefit from red oaks
What various species of shorebirds are found?
Hudsonian godwit, Stilt sandpiper, Red necked phalarope
What are the east side specialities?
Pickerel frog, Northern water snake, Wood turtle- spends a lot of time out of the water and eats earthworms, berries and acorns.
Why are these east side specialities mentioned in the last card found in the east but not the west?
Connectivity, a corridor that connects to an area with a bigger population, the Petawawa river connects to the Ottawa river
How was the Barron Canyon formed?
By a fault line
Deers were originally absent in the Algoquin but became abundant by the early 1900s, why?
When the loggers first came to Algonquin park they’re were gray wolves there eating moose, When the forest changed due to fires and clear cutting wolves were pretty much exterminated. The mature forest was pretty much gone for a time, White tailed deer came from the south and so did a smaller wolf that was once part of a continuous range of the red wolf, now called the eastern wolf. DNA done in the 1980’s showed that these wolves are not small gray wolves but in fact a different species entirely.
What is red wolf now called?
Eastern wolf, a small wolf that eats white tailed deer. Small range of these wolves but special in terms of genetics.
How do they study wolves?
Wolves are night active. Studying them by finding signs of them that are left because of their droppings. Measure them and put a radio transmitter on their neck and follow them around, using radio telemetry. Scat analysis is used to study wolves as well, can tell what they do and don’t eat. They find white tailed deer hair, moose and beaver. Historically, They found 80% of a wolves diet was white tailed deer, but now they found they feed on about a third of each
Eastern Wolves
travel in packs the dominant or alpha pair runs the pack, they are the only ones that breed each spring- wont allow the others to breed (average pack size of animals in Algonquin is 7)
Birthing of eastern wolves
One pair producing pups each spring, they are born in underground dens, they mate in late February, the gestation is nine weeks long and the pups are born in may (4-6 are born) they are moved to summer homes called rendezvous sites, they grow and learn basic hunting skills here. Always a parent within ear shot to protect the pups, they can change location based on food supply.Pups are very vocal at sites.
Many plants and animals reach their _____ range limit in the algonquin
northern
What animals use peatlands?
Wolves (and beaver meadows) moose,
What feature do lakes have that ponds and rivers dont have
they tend to be bigger and deeper, all throughout the summer the surface of the lake gets heated, and the bottom stays cold, stratification occurs and layers start forming. The bottom is drastically colder the bottom is 4 degrees
Northern animals present
Boreal chickadees, Spruce grouse, gray jays here (resting in red pine, a northern bird in a southern tree) Great gray owl, marten, fishers , moose
