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You are presently viewing the 3rd day of a series of 7, day-long field trips exploring the geoscience of Massachusetts. Use the navigation area to the left to view the entire series. For more information about this site, please visit the Geoscience Tour Overview.
As time passes, I will be adding content to this site in the form of
HTML presentations, digital photographs, and reference materials & sites. I hope you find this information of value.
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Massachusetts' Ecoregions
Ecoregions delineate areas with similar characteristics and resources, also known as ecosystem capital. Ecoregions are used in many ways when the application of this system's spatially-orientd data may prove useful (e.g., watersheds, agriculture, water resources, and nonpoint-source pollution).
Ecoregions are based on a number of variables including geology, geography, vegetation, soil types, land use, wildlife, scale of human development, hydrology, and climate (temperature and precipitation). The classification of a given area as one ecoregion or another implies that all of the contributing variables count equally. This, however, is not the case. Climate largely determines where the boundaries among different areas will be located. Climate is the dominant factor because as the climate changes, so too do all of the other factors of a given area (plants, soils, etc.) as they respond to climate.
This portion of our geoscience tour will take a look at Massachusetts' ecoregions in the context of climate change and invasive species. This tour includes related background science, as well as a virtual field trip, available via the links (located to the left) as follows:
Background
The relationship between climate and ecoregions will be explored, including how a change in one imparts a change to the other. Change the climate (temperatures / precipitation patterns) and a given ecoregion may increase or decrease in size, which then imparts change to neighboring ecoregions. One example that takes this point to its extreme is to consider the environmental changes that have taken place in Massachusetts since the end of the last glacial period (refer to the background reading for Day 4 of this tour).
Field Trip
Building upon the provided background information, I have put together a virtual (or actual) field trip that begins with a visit to several locations along the route to the Fisher Museum Harvard Forest in Petersham, MA. Once at Harvard Forest, we will participate in an interpretive tour highlighting on-going long-term research examining ecological dynamics in the New England region resulting from natural disturbances, environmental change, and human impacts. Specific locations and directions are also included for those who live in the region and would like to explore the area first-hand.
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FIGURE 1: Travel Map