Photos show a low-lying coastal forest in Old Lyme, Connecticut, on a forested ~fifteen-acre “peninsula” bordered by brackish marsh. It is just east of the Connecticut River and north of the Amtrak RR line. Upland forest is mostly limited to roadsides and embankments, but has the full suite of species typical of this forest community, as described below in a Sea Grant (UConn) Fact Sheet. So little Coastal Forest remains in this state , due to coastal development and farming, that it has been designated a Critical Habitat by CTDEEP.
Coastal forests are found along the coast and are subject to a maritime climate. These forests do not receive daily salt spray (as a true maritime forest may), but can be subject to wind and salt spray during storm events.
VEGETATION
Oak trees, particularly black, white, chestnut and scarlet, are the dominant trees of these forests. Other trees that may be intermixed with the oaks include black cherry, sassafras, red maple, beech, tupelo, white pine and pitch pine. Low lying shrubs such as low bush blueberries and black huckleberry. Vines are very characteristic of coastal forest edges and openings including Virginia creeper, poison ivy, grape and greenbriers. (I would add hackberry and American Holly, as characteristic trees, and bayberry, a salt tolerant native shrub.)
WHY THEY ARE IMPORTANT
Due to intense agricultural and development pressures, Connecticut has very little forest left within the coastal zone. What is left is often heavily browsed by deer and invaded by non-native species. Raising awareness of where and what these forests are will aid in protection and restoration efforts.
Avalonia Land Conservancy is the proud steward of the 527-acre TriTown Forest Preserve in southeastern Connecticut. Well buffered by extensive additional protected open space, including Natchaug State Forest, this preserve not only has a wide range of pristine wetland classes. It also has rugged hills with cliffs, ledges, talus slopes, plateaus, shallow-to bedrock soils, and rocky summits. Forest cover includes well-drained deciduous forest, moist to wet bottomland forest, and mixed hardwood evergreen forest, and ridgetop oak blueberry woodlands. These habitats are accessible to the general public via a well-marked trail system. Four annotated photo-albums provide virtual guided nature hikes. The Preserve website has an excellent trail map and other useful information. https://avalonia.org/tritown-forest/
Links to four annotated photo albums document four early fall field trips, gathering data for a botany report to Avalonia Land Conservancy. They show the plant communities in this large interesting Preserve in Southeastern Connecticut, with gabbro bedrock.
The albums were generated using Facebook, but are now accessible to anyone via this CaryaEcological.com website.
The underlying bedrock of the TriTown Forest Preserve is Connecticut’s only major formation of Preston gabbro. formation). This an ancient igneous, mafic bedrock, with minerology closely akin to basalt, weathering into mineral-rich soils. Habitat at the base of gabbro cliffs is fed by mineral-rich seepage, and able to support “rich -site” plants.
Due to their much greater age, the gabbro hills in the TriTown Forest Preserve and its surroundings are more severely weathered than the basalt and diabase ridges in the Metacomet Ridge. The low, flat-topped hills, blanketed with acidic glacial till, have typical soil for the state’s eastern Highlands: acidic and infertile, though rich in humus. However, the higher hills still have areas with sub-acidic, base-rich soils, and groundwater seepage through gabbro soil parent materials is still calcium-rich, resulting in slope-base soils that are mineral-rich and circum-neutral. Gabbro ridges support localized minerotrophic plant communities, comparable to those on traprock habitats in central Connecticut. Although they may support unusual and uncommon plant species, gabbro habitats also support healthy populations of regionally common species, and the insect and wildlife populations that depend on them.
The summit/upper slope plant communities were a focus of a 2019 botanical study led by Carya Ecological Services and the CT Botanical Society. Certain dominant and characteristic plants were present on well-drained gabbro hilltops throughout the site, regardless of elevation. This includes Lambert Peak and the crest of Rixtown Mountain, both over 500 feet in elevation. Well-drained upper slopes and plateaus, and foothills had a maximum height of 300 to 400 feet. These anchor species include pignut hickory, white oak, black oak, red cedar, sugar maple, Penn sedge, and heaths (black huckleberry and low blueberry). The most diverse plant species assemblages were at the highest elevations and in cliff-base talus, which also supported massive sugar maples .
Shallow bedrock increases the frequency of tree blowdowns, regularly creating new openings, and helps to maintain high species diversity in summit habitats. (Pickett & White, 1985) Rocky summits usually have tawny patches with little blue stem grass. Upper slopes usually have an open understory, with a “lawn” of Penn sedge, scattered maple leaf viburnum, and scattered large boulders. Especially at the high elevations, many other wildflower and native grass and sedge species are interspersed.On level plateaus along the ridges, stunted trees and saplings are typically widely spaced within a broad, low patch of twiggy heaths, as shown in the photo below.
Concentrations of interesting herbs often occur beneath red cedars, an observation warranting further study. These included hairy bedstraw, ebony spleenwort, smooth whitlow grass, red columbine, dwarf saxifrage, wild oat grass (Danthonia spicata), panicled hawkweed, wavy-leaved aster, rue anemone, blue goldenrod, gray goldenrod, and silverrod.
Symphiotrichum undulatum (wavy-leaved aster)
Other species occurred only in one or two sizable patches, e.g. lopseed, hoary mountain mint, Bosc’s rosette panic grass, and bear oak. Uncommon low shrub and herb species with very limited occurrence in the TriTown Forest Preserve include Carolina rose, dwarf chinquapin oak, skunk meadow rue, rock muhle (Muhlenbergia sobolifera), Lyre-leaved rock cress and stiff rock cress. The two cresses are important host plants for a rare butterfly species, the orange-tip falcate butterfly. Blunt-leaved woodsia was found in only one cliff-top location. Summits also support scattered dwarf Carolina roses and occasional small individuals of an unknown hawthorn species, too young to be identified – a puzzle for future investigation.
Moss and lichen flora are also important in sunny or partly shaded summit habitats. Drought-tolerant mosses such as juniper haircap moss (Polytrichum juniperus) are early colonizers of bare, shallow soil, and help to build up organic matter levels. Hedwigia cilata, medusa moss, is a partially shade-tolerant moss found on a large boulder face. Schistidium apocarpon (rock beard moss) is another boulder moss that tolerates dry conditions. Crustose lichens are on exposed rock surfaces – boulders, cliff faces, and bedrock outcrops. These include rock shields, in the Flavoparmelia and Xanthoparmela genera, and smaller species such as the smokey blue-eyed lichen, Porpidia albcaerulescens. Lichen rhizoids which penetrate rock crevices, and secretions such as oxalic acid help to weather bedrock and release the minerals needed by plants.
Also encountered in open, sunlit gabbro summits are occasional plants, such as smartweeds, hawkweeds, fleabanes, common mullein, or hawk weeds, that are typically found, as well, on trailsides and other open disturbed areas. Wavy-leaved aster is an example of a native aster found in two habitats: trailsides and gabbro summits. Others are exotic species, but still useful for pollinators, and as seed producers for wildlife. They are poor competitors, but fecund, and able to colonize open, disturbed sites.
In this gabbro ridge system, invasive plant colonizers were absent or extremely sparse in 2019, after a very thorough invasive plant eradication program during the prior year. Mugwort would thrive on gabbro summits and rock outcrops but has not reached this preserve. With the steadily increasing usage of the preserve by hikers, annual early summer checks for mugwort seedlings are recommended, so they can be pulled before establishment of rhizomes that would sprout again, after pulling.
Published in April 2017 by The Connecticut Botanical Society P.O. Box 9004, New Haven, CT06532 ~Established 1903 ~
The following article was reviewed by Dr. Claire Rutledge, in charge of Emerald Ash Borer Research at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) on 4-21-2017. Written by Sigrun Gadwa, it was edited by members of the CBS Conservation and Ecology Committee and the Cheshire Land Trust.
Will ash trees soon be just a fond memory? The larvae of the iridescent Emerald Ash Borer(EAB) have killed over thirty million ash trees in the North America since it arrived from Asia in the early 1990’s in the Detroit, MI area. Ash is an important tree of wetland and upland forests, farmland hedgerows, and urban neighborhoods. Currently ash comprises 3 to 5% of our forests, but in some parts of the state it reaches 20% of the trees. Ash is an attractive, spreading shade tree, and its wood is also very useful! Ash firewood is excellent; it seasons quickly, burns hot but slowly, and is easy to split. The wood is also valuable as lumber and for woodworking, for example, durable, blond kitchen cabinets and the best and safest baseball bats.
The EAB beetles feed on the inner bark (the phloem tissue). By gouging serpentine galleries, the borers disrupt the trees’ internal nutrient and water transport system. Trees die within 3-5 years. Once die-back in the canopy reaches 50 percent, the tree’s demise is certain, and there is no point in applying systemic insecticides, an option for control if done soon enough.
CAES and CBS recommend ways to slow down this epidemic:
1) Avoid transporting ash firewood or lumber, if bark is still on.
2) It is also important to take down stricken trees, and properly treat the infested bark and branches. Beginning in mid-May, and through the early summer, the EAB beetles will transform from dormant pupae into emerald green, flying beetles, emerging from ash trees via tell-tale “D”-shaped exit holes. Taking down infested trees will prevent many EAB’s from flying off to other healthy ash trees, to lay the eggs for a new generation.
Biological control, fortunately, offers a reasonable expectation for success over the long term, against the Emerald Ash borer (Agrilus planipennis), a native to Asia. In 2013, under the direction of Dr. Claire Rutledge, the CT Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES), two tiny, Asian wasps (Oobius agrili and Tetrastichus planipennisi) were released in Connecticut and have been monitored for four years; Spathius agrili was released last year. These wasp species lay eggs on EAB eggs (Oobius) and larvae (Tetrastichus and Spathius), regardless of whether the ash species are American or Asian. The new crop of bio-control beetles emerges slightly before the EAB’s. Oobius is very hard to detect, but the spread of Tetrastichus (shown below) was documented, about 2.5 miles in two years, and it tolerates our climate. All the tiny wasps meet a key criterion for any bio-control agent: host-specificity – they do not parasitize native bark insects. However, widespread establishment of these bio-control wasps is expected to take at least 10 more years.
Development of EAB-resistant strains of ash is also a slow process, but has a high expectation for success. The Asian species of ash are all resistant to EAB, and forestry researchers throughout the Northeastern US are working on breeding/locating resistant strains. David Yih, CBS President, asks anyone who finds a surviving ash tree in a hard-hit area, to report it to CAES.StateEntomologist@ct.gov or 203-974-8474. American ash species already have the potential to produce defensive phenolic compounds, that inhibit growth of EAB larvae. However, currently, most ash trees do not detect the burrowing EAB beetles, and therefore do not deploy their defenses – the missing link to EAB resistance.
“Slow down Ash Mortality” (SLAM)
Both Claire Rutledge and Douglas Emerthal of CTDEEP urge Connecticut citizens, institutions, and towns to take action to SLAM or “Slow down Ash Mortality” to give the bio-control wasps more time to establish themselves, and for development of EAB-resistant ash strains. These agencies are educating citizens on proper disposal of the bark and wood, in order to kill the dormant pupae. Chippers must grind the wood small enough to ensure EAB mortality: no more than one-inch across, in at least two dimensions.
Before removing a tree, learn to identify it as an ash; if unsure, consult your local arborist or another expert. All ash (Fraxinus) species have opposite branching, compound leaves, and tightly ridged bark. Hickories, black oaks, and young cottonwoods have similar bark but alternate branching. Identification resources include https://gobotany.newenglandwild.org and and http://www.ct.gov/deep/lib/deep/forestry/eab/emerald _ash_borer_quick_reference_guide_final.pdf .
High woodpecker activity is a tell-tale sign of EAB infestation, and is somewhat helpful for slowing EAB spread. Look for long vertical streaks of exposed, sheared off, light tan bark, as shown below. Woodpeckers and nuthatches can consume up to 85 percent of the EAB beetles in one tree, per a University of Chicago study – and their populations are growing in regions hit heavily by EAB. Helpful, but not enough.
If handled properly, use of EAB-infested ash trees for firewood, lumber, or woodworking can be a thrifty alternative to huge piles of ash wood chip mulch. Wood of infested trees is still valuable for firewood or as lumber, after debarking, since beetle galleries are in the inner bark. The town of North Haven recouped $1500 recently, by selling ash lumber from infected street trees.
EAB beetles (and other wood insects) can be killed either by debarking and chipping the bark, or by baking wood sections in a kiln. Wood with bark should only be transported and processed during the dormant season, October through March, although transport in any season is risky. Chunks of wood, bark, and debris on the truck bed, can shed EAB pre-pupae. Or EAB beetles can emerge while the wood is waiting for kiln treatment in a pile at a facility. Unfortunately, most tree removal companies do not debark on site, and very few Connecticut kilns are government-certified. The USDA requires a very high internal wood temperature of at least 60 degrees C (140 degrees F) for at least an hour.
One option for an industrious property-owner is to purchase a chain-saw mounted debarker on line and debark the logs of dying ash trees on site, using a tarp and chipping up the bark debris and branches.
Clean wood can safely be stored on site under cover, or sold, helping offset tree-felling costs. Even if you are unable to debark the tree, taking it down, chipping the smaller branches, and storing the rest under a tarp will significantly reduce the population of beetles emerging from the tree.
Our towns, and the state as a whole, need a non-wasteful, practical system for handling – and recycling – infested wood with negligible EAB dispersal, as well as more readily available debarking services and many more certified kilns. On-line guidance is available for recycling paper, plastic, etc., but not for diseased trees.
Treatment with systemic insecticides is an alternative to control EAB, primarily for lightly infested, valuable tree specimens in an residential or urban area, though it’s also expensive and has significant downsides. To avoid killing pollinators that feed on the copious pollen produced by ash trees in early spring, the CAES guidance fact sheet recommends applying the product dinotefuran, after the ash bloom period, when the ash samaras (winged seeds) are starting to form, as pictured below.
Dinotofuran has a short-residual, in contrast to other more persistent, systemic insecticides like imidacloprid, clothianidin, and emamectin benzoate, which pose a long-term risk to many harmless insects, such as the inch worms that nesting birds feed to their young. CAES is currently researching whether systemic insecticides may harm bio-control wasps. Broad-spectrum contact sprays are also a real environmental hazard, and may interfere with the spread of the bio-control wasps; drift is often substantial, especially for a tall tree. Note that heavily infested trees cannot be saved by insecticides. However, it seems wise to preserve some ash trees with systemic, non-persistent insecticides in a very hard-hit area. Their seeds will be able to recolonize the area, once the wasp bio-controls are well established.
In summary, CBS urges Connecticut residents to take down infested trees, using proper treatment of the inner bark, and to be alert for surviving ash saplings and trees. In part so that trees with resistance to EAB may be detected, but also for the sake of the 100+ species of arthropods that have no other host plants – and the birds that feed on them – we do not favor widespread, proactive removal of healthy trees or widespread use of insecticides. And finally, continued research, resistance breeding, and outreach by tax-funded agricultural extension and environmental agencies like CAES and CTDEEP are essential if ashes are to persist in the Connecticut landscape. In the current political climate these organizations are being targeted for drastic budget cuts, so please let your state representatives and officials know how important this work is.
When lesser celandine (Ranunculus ficaria) came up in a shady moist part of my yard, I admit, I did not promptly rip it out, though I do know it is a confirmed Invasive Plant Species, on the official Connecticut List. I realized that this patch probably originated from a bulblet that I had tracked back from the floodplain after field work, likely stuck in a boot tread.
Its glossy, yellow petals were like those of a buttercup or marsh marigold, only there were more of them (eight versus five). The dark-green, scalloped leaves were shiny and heart-shaped, and formed a full, weed-free ground-cover, though spreading far less than the patches I had seen on the Quinnipiac River and Wharton Brook floodplains. I rationalized that this species was invasive in wetlands, not upland yards, so… I might as well let it grow and study it. When seed set failed altogether, I was reassured that seeds could not disperse to the Ten Mile River floodplain, only half a mile away. As a spring ephemeral, the lesser celandine dwindled as the tree canopy expanded, and by August I saw only a few yellowed leaves- and many bulblets. I erected a barrier of logs and brush so no one would walk there and pick up bulblets in their shoes.
Ranunculus ficaria spreads aggressively by bulblets in river floodplains, where floodwaters move the buoyant bulbs around, but I had rationalized that my patch was innocuous as a small sterile clone in an inland, upland setting. Two years later, my friend Jeanne Chesanow showed me a similar, small sterile patch of lesser celandine in her yard, also in shaded, mesic upland soil. She lives about a mile south of my house. I started to wonder, just how far do bees fly?
Lesser Celandine is reported to produce fertile seed erratically. Seeds may not have not formed in my and Jeanne’s clones because the female flowers must receive pollen from a genetically different mating type, and none grow nearby. However, with cross pollination between lesser celandine patches in multiple gardens, how soon will a threshold of abundance be reached, such that lesser celandine starts setting more viable seed? If that happens, will this plant “take off” in mesic, upland habitats, as well as river floodplains? Purple loosestrife spent many decades in the twentieth century, as a well behaved garden plant, producing few fertile seeds…. until that abundance threshold was reached and self incompatibility was no longer limiting. Only then did it start proliferating in a wide range of wetland and moist habitats.
This is a particularly tempting invasive, the more so because it forms a natural, attractive ground cover, and is hardy and carefree. It is widely sold! Most gardeners are probably unaware they are harboring an invasive species, may think it is Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris). I wondered, just how many other yards in Cheshire also have celandine patches. It was time to stop playing around. I dumped a thick layer of mulch over my patch, and Jeanne got rid of hers as well. Digging it is risky, as bulblets are dispersed.
A year has passed, and it is early spring, mud season. My garden has no yellow celandine flowers. As a weekly erosion inspector at a school construction site, I am trying to persuade the contractor to spread hay over the idle bare soil, to reduce the export of fine sediment and phosphorus to the Quinnipiac River. I wonder, could the yellow-dotted carpets of Celandine over bare, floodplain soils actually benefit the river and Long Island Sound, by reducing phosphorus loading to during the early spring season? However, especially in moist floodplain habitats, large mats of lesser celandine obliterate other delicate spring ephemeral wild- flowers like trout lily, wild ginger, and spring beauty, and also compete with perennial sedges and spring-germinating annuals.
However, lesser celandine is reported to be much less less invasive in uplands than floodplains. Could this plant be useful as a spring ground cover for landscaping, in well-drained soils, until other garden perennials have reached summer biomass? Could it help reduce lawn areas and turf chemical use, to protect downstream water quality? More funding is needed for applied research, to more precisely understand which habitats are most vulnerable to a given invasive species, and also to study breeding systems. Is increased production of fertile Lesser Celandine seed really a threat?
Mugwort or wild chrysanthemum (Artemisia vulgaris) has reached two unfortunate milestones: it has been added to the official, confirmed invasive species list of Connecticut, and it has started producing fertile seeds! It used to spread only by rhizomes, via stray chunks of dirt carried by tires & equipment. (That is what the internet fact sheets say.) But no longer, per recent germination tests by Jeff Ward, a scientist at the New Haven campus of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.
Mugwort was probably an obligate out-crosser, needing to be pollinated by another genetically different individual. Over the past few decades, populations have grown and spread, mostly along roads and in construction sites. Mugwort may have evolved to be able to self-pollinate. Or it may simply be that more unrelated clones grow closer together, such that successful cross-pollination (by wind) has started happening more often. Mugwort is now “taking off.” Unless the herbal medicine entrepreneurs start harvesting in quantity!
Chrysanthemum’s Ugly Cousin
It does look rather like a chrysanthemum. As a young gardener I made that error, and let several grow through the summer. But the flowers were tiny and totally nondescript, not lovely mums!
In winter mugwort stands are dull, even, light brown, and they usually cover large areas. Patches spring up on bare soil, left idle and unplanted, unstabilized after road-widening, topsoil stripping, or whatever. Incidentally, not stabilizing exposed soil at a work site, after active work has ceased, is counter to the 2000 Connecticut Erosion Control manual. If the road crew would only spread a few bales of mulch, preferably non-weed-free cuttings from a local meadow.
Dull brown in WinterOne cannot rationalize that at least the wildlife value is high. Flowers are pollinated by wind, not bees or butterflies. Mugwort seeds are so tiny that the effort of finding and eating them would be greater for a songbird or vole than the calories gained. Most of the seed is its pale flying scale, irregular and variably shaped.
An aroma like a potent disinfectant
A potent aroma will strike you as you walk though a mugwort patch in November, and crunch up some crisp leaves and seed heads – I imagine it smells like a busy apothecary in the 19th century. It was used to repel moths in wool closets. Powdered dried mugwort is still fed to sheep and goats, to prevent and treat parasites. Mugwort is sold on the internet to treat various human ailments.
Sheep farmers beware! Toxic overdose is possible, as plants vary widely in active ingredient concentrations. On the other hand, if you can determine the approximate potency of your local Artemisia vulgaris, using it to control parasites will help help you get a better price for meat and wool, as “certified organic”.
In contrast to mugwort, chocolate vine (Akebia quinata ) could hardly be more appealing, even has a fragrance of chocolate. It it is a special, uncommon ornamental that has NOT yet reached the stage of fertile seeds, though it sometimes escapes and smothers an acre or two of woods. At a challenging restoration site in the wealthy town of Wilton, Connecticut the diameter of Akebia patch diameter increased from 10′ to 40′ in two years, and the vine has now climbed at least 15′ up 8 trees and saplings.
It used to be a an uncommon, fancy horticultural specialty, but is now sold over the internet (catalogue is source of photo) with alluring pictures. Construction equipment and roadside disturbance were the major players in the initial build-up of mugwort. If Akebia becomes a “kudzu of the north”, its intrinsic beauty will be responsible. I fear the “fertile seeds ” milestone may not be far away. For now we are grateful that Connecticut plants are sterile.
Ebony spleenwort, characteristic of rocky ridgetop critical habitats, regardless of the type of bedrock.
I am often asked, just what is a critical habitat, and is it protected or not? My answer is drawn from a hybrid DEEP document (map plus explanations and keys) called “Critical Habitats” last revised in 2011. Recently retired DEEP plant ecologist, Kenneth Metzler wrote: “these habitat types have a long history of conservation interest and have been documented and studied as being among the most rare, unique, and threatened, habitats in the state.” Critical habitats support uncommon ecological communities, because their geology, soils, and/or hydrology are distinctive, which also confers scientific, educational and heritage value. They each support a characteristic and unique suite of plant and animal species. 25 upland critical habitats were identified in the Connecticut Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy (CWCS). The intent of the DEEP document is to help towns with their conservation planning – not to ban development of all critical habitats, but as a planning tool, to prioritize open space protection initiatives, in conjunction with other conservation planning principles: minimize habitat fragmentation, and maximize the size and ecological integrity of protected tracts. www.cteco.uconn.edu is the URL.
State statute does include protections for endangered and threatened species. Critical habitats are a good deal more likely than the average field or woodlot to include state-listed species (Endangered, Threatened, and Species of Special Concern.) Each critical habitat also has many other unusual plants and animals that don’t quite “make the cut” for Connecticut’s List – pitcher plant in a Black Spruce Bog, for example.
Also expected in a critical habitat are rare species among the understudied life forms like lichens, mosses, and soil microbes. These life forms are simply missing from the Connecticut Natural Diversity Database (NDDB) lists.
Potential rare species are likely to be missed by a targeted search for one or two species, especially because they are readily detected during a short window. Plant seeds may lie dormant in the seed bank, sprouting only in certain years. Many small plants are usually overlooked, even by botanists, except during a brief window when they are in bloom. Most insects, including butterflies and moths, are detectable only for a brief portion of the year. Rather than doing exhaustive, specialized searches, it is less expensive and simpler, to determine whether the expected suite of diverse, characteristic plant species is present, and if it is, to protect the critical habitat.
For example, we assessed a pristine black spruce/white cedar/ sphagnum bog recently, with hundreds of pitcher plants. The targeted listed species are insects that feed on pitcher plant; we are recommending conservation of the whole bog with a wide buffer, with no need for a search for the tiny rare insects.
A bog in Canterbury has 100’s of of pitcher plants, and land use boards fully understand that this critical habitat, and must be fully protected.; the biodiversity value of rocky outcrops is less widely understood.
Bedrock outcrop in Essex. A full inventory of the hilltop plant community is not possible outside the growing season. We recommended including the entire hilltop in the open space portion of the subdivision.
Planning Considerations
The “critical habitat” label is a flag for land use planners to commission a thorough inventory and to search for rare, state-listed species in multiple seasons, before the area is developed, and if possible over a several year period. Critical habitat status alerts planning boards that a property is likely to be a desirable, interesting destination for recreation, and a potential site for nature study and/or scientific investigations. Trails, towers, boardwalks, maps, and informative web sites can enhance these human values. Excessive human use may degrade them, but more often they are protected by human intervention, such as invasive plant control or occasional tree-trimming to maintain an open critical habitat. Public education on a critical habitat helps with its long term protection.
Some critical habitats, like black spruce bogs and white cedar swamps, are so unusual that their status is widely understood and accepted, and they also have the protection of being wetlands. The special status of other critical habitats is much less widely understood. As a botanist, I am most familiar with three largely overlooked critical habitats:
1) The group of plant communities on soils derived from traprock or limestone (subacidic/neutral and mineral-rich), including glades, dry forests, and summit shrublands; and
2) Outcroppings, ledges, cliffs, and rocky, open summits, with pockets of mineral-rich soil. These are defined as critical habitats in the ECO key, regardless of bedrock type.
3) The rich floodplains of larger rivers;
The status of these less well known critical habitats is not widely understood by regulators, natural resource professionals, and the general public; as explained above, official DEEP Critical Habitat status does not confer protection from development or quarrying, unless the areas are demonstrated to support Endangered or Threatened species. However, CTDEEP typically requires a survey for rare species by an expert, if a development site includes a known critical habitat. Floodplains are protected, but the main reason is avoidance of flood damage. Protection for privately owned rocky knolls and summits is still lacking in most town zoning regulations, despite official DEEP Critical Habitat status.
For the volcanic traprock ridges and certain ridges with amphibolite minerals, there exists already a model ridgeline protection ordinance, based on a CT Statute (Sections 8-1aa and 8-2 c), incorporated into the zoning regulations of some towns. This ordinance applies only to the more dramatic, high ridges, though low ridges, if reasonably undegraded by man, also include critical habitats with characteristic and unusual traprock geology, botany, and fauna.
Zoning regulations can also be amended to protect better natural features meeting certain criteria with value for the community as a whole: heritage value, outstanding aesthetics, or historic, scientific, and/or educational interest. Protection of these natural features can also be a goal guiding open space acquisition activities by municipalities, the state, and private land trusts. However, consistent with the Connecticut Comprehensive Wildlife Strategy, the long term welfare of the fauna and flora will better served by one sizable (e.g. over 100 acres) preserve with a few critical habitat pockets, than by multiple critical habitat pockets (rock outcrops) in a matrix of small woodlots and development.
History of the “Critical Habitat: Concept
DEEP has been refining its list of “Critical Habitats,” for many years, building off those identified by Joseph Dowhan and Bob Craig in Rare and Endangered Species of Connecticut and their Habitats (1976), with descriptions of all of the State’s Ecoregions (DEEP Natural Resources Center Report of Investigations No. 6.) My associate, George, and I have referred to this red book so much in our ecological consulting work, that both our copies are tattered.
For over a decade, natural resource professionals cited the List of 13 Imperiled Habitats developed by Ken Metzler of CTDEEP and David Wagner of the University of Connecticut at Storrs. It includes one difficult-to-map habitat: “headwaters springs and seeps” that is not on the current DEEP critical habitat map key, although it is a fragile habitat for multiple rare and uncommon species, and crucial for the health of larger streams and rivers. Better consistency is needed between the Imperiled Habitats List and the new CT ECO document.
The current CT ECO (Connecticut Environmental Conditions On-line) classification system includes a map showing the larger critical habitat units, and also a key with detailed definitions of each critical habitat. Since the scale of the map is such that most occurrences are omitted and since much of the state has not yet been surveyed, the introduction and the key are actually the most important parts of the document.
A fine introduction is Dr. Robert Craig’s book Great Day Trips to Connecticut Critical Habitats (2004), which is available, used, on line. This readable book is a guide to actual examples of fascinating critical habitats, accessible to the general pubic, with much thoughtful, scientific explanation. Foremost a bird expert, Bob Craig now runs Bird Conservation Research, Inc., a non-profit in Eastern Connecticut. I knew him twenty years ago in grad school at the University of Connecticut at Storrs.
Scale Considerations
The group of critical habitats associated with The Metacomet traprock ridges occupies a tiny fraction of the state of Connecticut, but is nevertheless extensive enough to support large metapopulations of both common and uncommon plants and animals. The river floodplain habitats are include unusually large critical habitats, ecologically and genetically linked by flowing water.
I keep encountering morphologically distinctive plant varieties in these critical habitats, and realize that genetic variability also encompasses unseen metabolic characteristics, that will help plants adapt to ecological change. A gene pool with hundreds or preferably thousands of individuals is needed for a good prognosis for long term survival in the face of climate change and other disturbances.
Horticultural and landscaping potential and even potential for medicinal use are other reasons to preserve the botanical biodiversity in critical habitats. For example, the smooth aster variety shown below (Symphiotrichum laevis) is bushy & colorful, and tolerates a dry, rocky site on West Peak of Meriden’s Hanging Hills. It is a lovely and ornamental perennial wildflower, and would be well suited to xeriscaping.
Impressive data for many traprock taxa has been collected as part of development applications, such as the gas plant application on Cathole Mountain in 1999. The Connecticut Botanical Society and the local bird clubs have long term data from many field trips to subacidic and rocky critical habitats.
Glade habitat on West Peak of the Hanging Hills, in Meriden, June 2011. The grassy “lawn” is Pennsylvania sedge, and the flower is smooth rock cress, the food for the caterpillar of the endangered orange falcate butterfly. Hop hornbean, a typical glade tree, of subacidic, mineral-rich soils, at left. A talus slope is in the background.
The complex of critical habitats on the Metacomet traprock ridges has large populations of characteristic species like ebony spleenwort, bottlebrush grass, dwarf saxifrage, and hop hornbeam. They are not Endangered or Threatened species, protected by state statute, but are still species that are scarce in the surrounding, fragmented suburban landscape. Other species like Eastern box turtle and Ribbon snake, are listed as Species of Special Concern, such that CTDEEP can require searches and management plans, but cannot prohibit habitat development. Similarly clusters of crystalline bedrock outcrops in several sizable forested tracts along the Connecticut coast (including “The Preserve” in Essex and Old Saybrook) also support robust populations of Special Concern reptiles, and metapopulations of uncommon, rocky-site plant species like smooth foxglove and orange-fruited horse gentian. Along river floodplains, flowing water and waterfowl disperse seeds and link small stands of rare and uncommon plants, like Davis’ sedge, into larger genetic metapopulations.
For some taxa, a critical habitat need not be large and continuous so long as other examples are within dispersal distances for seeds, pollen, moths, etc. Such a parcel of critical habitat is still part of the overall unit, from a genetic standpoint. The on-line CT ECO map includes the large, contiguous well-known examples of critical habitats. Many other smaller examples are also worthy of study and protection, if they have not been severely degraded by invasive species or past farming.
Critical Habitats that lie within a much larger matrix of natural habitat are especially valuable from an overall wildlife conservation standpoint, especially for forest birds, large mammals, and for vernal pool amphibians. Example are the summits of Connecticut’s northwest hills; the extensive rugged forests with many bedrock outcrops in the undeveloped parts of Essex and Old Saybrook; and Cathole Mountain; and the Silvio Conte wildlife Refuge along the Connecticut River. The lower forested slopes of traprock and limestone ridges are not critical habitats, but they greatly increase the width and size of the habitat blocks. They also help protect the critical habitats along the ridge lines from colonization by invasive plant species. For example, the large, latent Summerlin Trails residential project on Cathole Mountain, as initially conceived, would avoid the upper ridge crests and critical habitat areas, but would much reduce the size of the overall habitat block, with potential to harm vernal pool species and area-sensitive forest bird populations.
Potential Outreach
Ample interesting material is available for outreach on critical habitats. A newspaper article or radio program could use examples of success stories, like Hubbard Park in Meriden and Quinnipiac State Park along the floo0dplain of the Quinnipiac River; of dramatic battles, like that over development of a pristine section of Cathole Ridge off Kensington Road in Berlin and of Cedar Ridge in Newington with outcome still unclear; and of destruction like the mined section of Corporate Ridge in Rocky Hill. Media outreach could revisit the volcanic geologic history, and past dramas, like the story of the now-defunct gas powered plant on Cathole Mountain in Meriden. It could remind the public and the land use boards of the successful campaign, led by Norm Zimmer in the 1990’s, for a Ridge Protection Compact.
Several other state-wide rare plants are common in this former cranberry bog.
This past Spring (May and June 2012) a group in south central Connecticut transplanted many blocks of peat soil, about 20″ X 20″, with very rare Adder’s Tongue Fern (Ophioglossum pusillum). This is an attempt to salvage the population from an area that is to become an active cranberry bog again, after many years of lying fallow except for mowing. The soil and vegetation blocks also contained the rest of the ecological community: royal fern, assorted sedges, rushes, and wildflowers, countless microorganisms, invertebrates, and – not to be forgotten – a seed bank. Watering and monitoring continues.
The destination area was closer to the road, also former cranberry bog, but still fallow. When choosing a location to place a block, great care was taken to replicate hydrology and aspect, though peat depth could not be replicated; the organic horizon was substantially deeper in the source area. It took over 100 man-hours of back-breaking labor by Carol Lemmon, a Board Member of the Connecticut Botanical Society, and half a dozen others (mostly volunteers) to move the population from the future cranberry cultivation area.
Maintaining the former cranberry bog as a wet meadow, rather than letting it revert to a red maple forest, requires regular mowing. Meadow, as a wildlife habitat, is in much shorter supply in Connecticut than forest. Phragmites australis control was also needed. This invasive would have completely overrun the entire diverse botanical community without expensive eradication. Fortunately with multiple rare and uncommon species, including several species of gorgeous pink orchids, funds have been found for the aspects of rescue, maintenance, and restoration that need paid skilled workers. The biodiversty and beauty of the unusual peatland wet meadow motivate volunteers to donate most of the man and woman power for execution of the rescue operation, as well as restoration and ongoing maintenance.
The Connecticut Threatened Adder’s Tongue has a simple, ovate leaf with a pointed tip, entire leaf edges (no teeth,) and is only abut two inches long. Its flower is a plain green spike, rather like a plantain flower. Adder’s Tongue looks for all the world like a Canada Mayflower leaf with a plantain flower. The photos below include a transplanted block with a few such leaves. For a clearer image, just google the scientific name. Blooming Pitcher Plant and some Rose Pogonia orchids are also shown.
I apologize for not including the location of this worthy project, quite likely to succeed, but it is CTDEEP policy not to divulge locations of rare species, for their future safety.
Ambitious rescue operation for one of the last populations of a Connecticut-Threatened plant speciesA population of CT Threatened Adder’s Tongue was transplanted, soil block by soil block into this wet meadow, from another nearby boggy wet meadow, soon to become a commercial cranberry bog again.
Why does food grown organically seem to taste better than conventionally grown food. Is this my imagination or due to some real difference? I read that levels of trace minerals (micro-nutrients) were usually lower in non-organic food. This makes sense for hydroponic foods, but why should conventional agribusiness crops have lover levels of trace minerals?
Truthfully, I’ve been somewhat sceptical about health and safety risks from GMO (genetically modified organism) crops? Inserting genes for disease resistance does seem sensible. The Environment Committee of the Connecticut Legislature happens to be reviewing a bill (HB 5117) that would require labeling all such food, so I read Hearing testimony and did some research.
A recognized concern, from a health and environmental standpoint, is the gene that has been spliced into crop plants, for a persistent bacterial toxin (from BT or Bacillus thuringensis). This toxin is now found in the blood of the majority of American women. It is a natural pesticide that attacks cell membranes – not just in the target pest caterpillars, but also membranes in rats and potentially in humans, especially fetuses. However, I did not see any data on toxin concentrations, and information on threshold concentrations for harmful effects is sorely lacking.
Analysis of potential impacts on adjacent ecosystem biodiversity from BT GMO crops has also been wholly inadequate. How will populations of economically insignificant species of caterpillars, moths and butterflies -and their predators- be affected by feeding on leaves and pollen from GMO plants along field edges? Ill effects on migrating monarch butterflies were in the news last year.
I see even less less public concern with the largest category of GMO crops: those with an inserted gene that makes them “Roundup Ready”, able to tolerate its active herbicide ingredient, glyphosate, although application rates must be cranked up several fold. Interference with uptake of micro-nutrients by glyphosate was studied in Stuttgart, Germany, at the University of Hohenheim, over ten years ago. German researchers warned us that mineral-deficient plants would be more susceptible to soil fungal diseases; this is now well documented for many fungal diseases – most recently widespread Fusarium wilt in GMO Roundup Ready soybeans in the southern US. The Stuttgart scientists found two causes of the problem: 1) glyphosate firmly latches (chelates) onto soil trace minerals, making them unavailable and 2) it eliminates or suppresses soil microbes and invertebrates. These include beneficial mycorhizal fungi) which help the plant extract soil nutrients (trace minerals included), and earthworms, springtails, isopods and man other soil organisms that recycle nutrients from plant debris into soil (trace minerals included). [As glyphosate is only one of many agrichemicals that suppress populations of soil organisms, my first question was answered; I can now see a scientific basis for lower levels of trace minerals in non-organically raised foods!
Because Roundup application rates increase sharply when GMO Roundup Ready crops are planted, this micro-nutrient problem has become more severe. Scientists at several US midwestern universities followed the lead of the Stuttgart researchers, including Don Huber at Purdue in Illinois, Barney Gordon in Kansas, and Kurt Thelan in Michigan. They have continued to investigate the trace mineral deficiencies, particularly manganese, but also zinc and others, that are an unwelcome side-effect of Roundup use (glyphosate). [The URL of a review article is http://www.environment.co.za/gm-foods-crops-biofuels-pesticides/missing-micronutrients-glyphosate.html. It was posted out of Western Illinois University by Enviroadmin on Sunday, 23 May 2010.}
It is now also known that the inserted gene in GMO Roundup Ready soybeans interferes with production of a root secretion that solubilizes minor mineral nutrients. (This is in addition to glyphosate directly chelating micro-nutrients, and suppressing or killing beneficial soil microbes and invertebrates.) Attempts to cope with the problem by fertilizing GMO Roundup Ready crops with heavy dosages of micro-nutrients have been challenged by the chelating (tight-attaching) properties of glyphosate. Similarly, human assimilation of mineral supplements in pill form is usually poor, unless the dietary supplements are bulky and food-derived! I, for one, balk at swallowing horse pills three times a day.
Nor has there been adequate analysis of the impacts on surrounding ecosystems of expanded Roundup use on Roundup Ready GMO crops. How much has it reduced the extent of field edge buffers with grass and forb (“weed”) seeds that used to be available for songbirds? Such buffer strips between and around fields are still available in a sustainably managed organic farm. More and more weeds are evolving resistance to to glyphosate; the response is accelerated efforts to develop GMO crops resistant to other herbicides, that have their own suites of risks and side-effects – which will also not be adequately tested as this is not yet required by EPA.
I can envision genetic modification for the purpose of inserting blight resistant genes from related plant species or perhaps to improve crop quality, but only after far more rigorous testing than is the current practice – directed by a third party entity (not Monsanto Corporation testing its own GMO crops!). But inserting genes for herbicide tolerance – or insecticidal proteins – seems fundamentally unwise. Expansion of organic agriculture is important for the human diet as well as for the surrounding natural environment; not just to avoid possible pesticide residues, but perhaps more importantly, for the sake of nutritional quality.
A version of this post was sent to several Connecticut members of the Environment Committee, and published by CT NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Association)
In about 1990 we applied Milky Spore to our lawn, just once, in the fall, after several years of trapping Japanese beetles in funnel shaped plastic bags with flower-scented lures. I’ll never forget the sickly sweet smell after it rained, and the dead beetles started decomposing! Milky Spore Disease was outstandingly effective, already the following summer. Over the past 20 years it has been rare to spot even one beetle.
Then why do I keep hearing reports of failures from various people? We even received a refund from the mail order company the next year, as many people had reported failure. How were their lawns different from ours? I wish a research agency would do a systematic study! In the meanwhile, perhaps internet comments can begin to solve the mystery.
Gadwa Case in Cheshire CT.
1: Our high beetle population at the time of application must have allowed an initial build-up of high spore concentrations.
2. We live on an exposed ridge top in central Connecticut – Hardiness Zone 5b.
3. We had used no herbicides or insecticides, but some chemical fertilizer (granules about once a season), and had initially added much composted cow manure & peat moss to our four year old lawn.
4. Our soil was a stony, well-drained fine sandy loam (largely subsoil, stripped of topsoil when the house was built), derived from glacial till, sunny in 1990.
If it were only clear how to make Milky Spore Disease work, I’m sure this natural one-time control would be preferred by most to repeated applications of long-lasting broad spectrum neurotoxins, such as imidacloprid! Imidacloprid is toxic to ALL insects, be they pests or benign, and harms human health as well. It has a half life of up to 730 days, and migrates through the soil. Imidacloprid is the active ingredient in Merit, Preen and Bayer Advanced, among others. The new formulation of GrubEx has Chloratranilipole, also a systemic, broad- spectrum insect neurotoxin, toxic to aquatic life – but with less risk to mammals (like us) and birds and somewhat less persistent.
This afternoon I heard on public radio (Faith Middleton Show) that health problems from indoor air pollution are worst in the most energy efficient, air-tight homes (LEED- certified). I also heard that on average Americans spend less than 95% of their waking day indoors. The Yale PHD interviewed praised his own leaky windows, for the healthy outdoor air they let into his house. (Research was done by Environment and Human Health, Inc. )
This is a very real problem, a major contributor to childhood asthma. I have heard that it can be addressed without squandering energy by systems of ventilation that include heat exchangers – and by choosing building and decorating materials for minimal off-gassing- like wool rugs – or straw mats, rather than synthetic carpet with backings and adhesives that generate unhealthy gasses. It would be great for sustainable farmers to have a stronger market for sheep wool! Faith Middleton pointed out that better labeling of materials is needed, so that homeowners and contractors can make informed choices.
If structural changes are not possible in the short term, it helps to periodically open multiple windows to air the house, on warmer days in winter, and to spend more time outdoors. My mother did not give me and my siblings a choice; we were sent outside to play and did indeed find interesting things to do. A diverse natural environment with some wildlife, insect life, and wildflowers will hold your childrens’ interest longer! Obviously we breath fresh air while hiking and walking the dog.
Consider also that time spent working in the yard, is time breathing healthier air- typically also with less dust and mold spores than indoor air. Pulling out lawn weeds, trimming bushes and raking weeds by hand is more time consuming than using power -tools. It seems to me that the yard would be more inviting to many adults, with greater variety of plantings – and self-seeded plants – native and non-native, to keep track of and tend. My husband is not a trained horticulturalist or ecologist, but enjoys spending time outside with me, following my lead, and listening and learning as I point things out. He now is able to recognize and mow around attractive native perennials – like buttercups and daisies – that crop up in the lawn, even before they bloom!
The outdoors is also more welcoming in summer, if indoor and outdoor temperatures are similar. At our house in Cheshire, Connecticut, in lieu of air conditioning, we use airflow drafts though open windows and screened doors, and shade from an “umbrella” catalpa tree (pruned each fall) on the south side of the house. Our extended family’s vacation house on Long Island is shaded to the south by two large hemlocks. It has a long, narrow shape with many windows on both sides, allowing for excellent cross ventilition. A screened second floor sleeping porch sleeps up to five (on cots) and is a pleasant place to spend time (read, sleep, or just rest and listen to the birds outside) even in very hot, humid summer weather, typical of Long Island.
Tomorrow, June 12th, is the birthday of my brother, who believes lots of work and play outdoors is the key to good health. We’ll be touring three demonstration alternative “organic” lawns in Newton, Massachusetts (Ecological Landscaping Assoc. http://www.ecolandscaping.org/), one with a solar house. I expect to learn more ways to spend time outside on my piece of land, and have a fine-looking, dog-safe and wildlife-friendly, “organically ” landscaped property – fodder for a future blog post. One way I know from childhood is to welcome black locust trees* and clover, which take nitrogen out of the air, by means of symbiotic rhizobium bacteria – free fertilizer! See photo below.
Sleeping porch: comfortable on hot LI nights- and days- in a pre-airconditioning house
*Black locust is on the invasive species lists of some states. It can spread aggressively, fertilize, and change, sandy infertile natural habitats, as on the Cape in Massachusetts, but in a home landscape , in a pasture, or as a street tree, it is just fine, in my opinion (and that of other Long Island “natural resource professionals” and farmers). Its abundant nectar is valuable for bees. Black locust is in fact native to the US – is from further south and west than Long Island and southern New England.
