Vaccinium oxycoccos in a bog near you!



Local cranberry bog 2006



This past Thanksgiving weekend, I was really excited to get into the boat to carry on the tradition we started in 2006, even though it was freezing outside…  Thankfully, it was a short boat ride!  It only took a few twists and turns through a winding, lily-padded wetland and we were there: we made it to the bog.

Bogs are interesting in their own right; they are natural water purifiers and are home to many interesting plants like sundews, Labrador tea, and pitcher plants.  But, what we were searching for was much tastier: cranberries!

Deer as horticulturists?

Right now, my whole hometown is ‘hunt crazy’; most men (and some women) have hunting on their minds and cannot focus on anything else.  November 1st to 13th is the rifle deer hunt, so everyone – including myself – is chatting with their hunting group; discussing which days, times, places, and ammo that might provide the best chances in bagging a big buck.



Frank the deer at QUBS

 For these two weeks, deer are viewed as nothing but a potentially delicious dinner, via sausages, pepperettes, steaks, and roasts.  Unfortunately, most hunters don’t stop to think about the importance of these creatures in the local ecosystem.  Deer can actually alter the forest composition at many levels (i.e. populations, communities) throughout their range; they act as vectors of seed dispersal of many plants.  This can occur in several ways: epizoochory (i.e. seeds get caught and transported in fur), zoochory (i.e. seeds move along animal pathways or are trampled into the dirt), and endozoochory (i.e. seeds are ingested and eliminated somewhere else). 

These phenomena often go unnoticed; if the seeds being transported belong to a locally common plant species, changes in surrounding distributions will not be noticeable (although genetic diversity can increase).  However, if the transported seeds belong to a new and/or invasive species, deer can facilitate frequency and distribution growth quickly.

Where have the fall colours gone?

 All last week I could barely contain my excitement: I was going to visit my parents for the weekend.  Although I love my parents dearly, it was actually fall I was looking forward to seeing.  Fall is best discovered in the country, where its smell and splendour are evident everywhere; while raking the yard, grouse hunting, pumpkin picking, and most of all – gazing at the beautiful coloured leaves.



Dramatic hobblebush leaf

Fall colour-seeking tourists, also called ‘leaf peepers’, travel from all over the country to visit my hometown area during the fall.  The huge assortment of deciduous tree types, combined with the rolling hills, perfectly displays Mother Nature’s artwork.  How lucky am I to have grown up in such an area, where I was able to take in the magic every fall from my front porch.

On the drive up last Saturday morning, I too turned into a ‘leaf peeper’; checking out the usual colour hot spots.  Upon passing R Lake – a small pond backed by a large rolling hill – my heart sunk.  The reds, oranges, and yellows were few and far between; instead browns and bare branches dominated the scenery.

As soon as I got out of the car at my parents’ house, I ran to the front yard to check out their beautiful red maple.  This tree is an attention getter.  It sits right at the corner of my parents’ lot, and could stop the traffic driving by during the fall.  Then, it normally has leaves that are fiery red, spotted with mustard yellow; a perfect backdrop to my family’s annual autumn photo.  Although many leaves were still on the tree, there were more boring browns than striking reds.

Was I just too late?  Did I miss it?  I couldn’t have.  Normally, the most intense colours weren’t on display until Thanksgiving weekend, and I was a week early.  So why were the colours so drab and the leaves shedding so early this year compared to those in the past?

Smaller is better: my first publication

Not only is our communication class learning to blog, we’re also learning the basic principles of good writing.  One of the basic rules: understand the topic you’re writing about, or your writing will be confusing to yourself and your reader.

So for my first research blog, I’m going to summarize something I am very familiar with: my first and only published paper titled “within-genus size distributions in angiosperms: small is better”.  For almost a year, I worked alongside my supervisor – plant ecologist Dr. Lonnie Aarssen – to develop a little idea that turned into something surprising, exciting, and statistically significant.