Woodland salamanders; indicators of a healthy forest?

June 2, 2020 Antonio Seelman

Red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus)

Red-backed salamanders are some of the most abundant vertebrates living on the forest floor. In New York State alone, there is an estimated 18 billion of them! These tiny creatures play big roles in ecosystems everywhere and their abundance can be used as an environmental indicator of forest health/age. Learn more about these animals by reading this article written by my former student Antonio Seelman!

Lecture 18: Multi-cohort stand development

April 30, 2020 Philip Pinzone

By making spatial and temporal observations, we can begin to see what a forest is, was, and may become.

Lecture 17: Single cohort stand development

April 22, 2020 Philip Pinzone

Today, we are going to look at the development of a single cohort stand. A single cohort is a stand of trees that become established within 10 years of each other. After a major disturbance in which all trees in the local area are killed, that region will (usually) go through four stages, which we will learn about in this lecture. Stand initiation, stem exclusion, understory re-initiation, and old growth.

Lecture 16: Trophic dynamics in Eastern mixed forests

April 17, 2020 Philip Pinzone

In today's lecture, I'm going to describe trophic dynamics using examples from Eastern mixed forests. Depending on the ecosystem, bottom, middle, and/or top trophic levels may influence the species living in a specific place and actually structure the ecosystem. Changing the abundances of organisms with strong structuring power relays to changing trophic dynamics. As I hike around Allegany state park, I'll go over examples I find in greater detail. Together, we'll look at these patterns and hopefully be able to better understand forest ecology from the perspective of the forest floor.

Lecture 14: Community classification and sampling techniques

April 7, 2020 Philip Pinzone

In today's lecture, we are going to better understand how researchers study forests. We'll learn the difference between samples and surveys, and use Letchworth Woods on UB's campus as an example to go over three unbiased survey techniques. We will then learn about how different plant communities are classified. Western New York was surveyed back in the 1790s as well as in more modern times (1990s). We will end the lecture by comparing these different vegetation maps with each other, and start to recognize how our local forest ecosystems have significantly changed. We will look at these patterns and hopefully be able to better understand forest ecology from the perspective of the forest floor.

Your path towards ecological understanding