 the relations of organisms to one another and their physical surroundings. And that's the big key thing is the relationships. And that's from the Oxford Dictionary. Something else that I think of when I teach ecology to students and also when I'm in any either wild environment or urban environment where I'm considering the ecology of the place. I like to think about these five factors that influence plant ecology. And so when you're in a space like Lighthouse Park, ask yourself, how does the geology affect the plant ecology of this space? How does the topography affect the plant ecology of this space? The climate, the biota, meaning all the other plants and animals, insects, microorganisms, and then how has time affected it and what is happening over time, like the element of time? How does that play into things? And so this is a fun exercise. If you can remember these things, geology, topography, climate, biota time, it is really fun to ask yourself those questions. And that is what I like to do when I go hiking. I just kind of in a structured way, I ask myself, geology, topography, climate, biota time. And it's amazing how differently you see a space when you look at an area through that lens. I'm not sure if anybody or everybody has read this book, The Invention of Nature, Alexander von Humboldt's New World. The author is Andrea Wolff. It was published in 2015. This is a fantastic book. If you haven't read this book and you're interested in plants, read this book. So Alexander von Humboldt was a really, really interesting person. So he was, some people call him the grandfather of science. He was alive in the late 18th century, early 19th century. And this was an interesting time because this is at a time when people started to question the world through the lens of science as opposed to the lens of religion. And it's not fair to call him a botanist or a biologist or a volcanologist. He was interested in everything. And so imagine this in, you know, woollen 19th century clothes with wooden brass and glass instruments, Humboldt explored. He's famous for exploring South America. So, you know, Bolivia, for example, and, you know, he'd walk up mountains with all of his equipment and take measurements of temperature and altitude and air pressure and do an inventory of plants and animals. And his mind was operating on all these different levels. And he asked himself, he questioned the natural world. And he's credited to be the first person who predicted the impact of humans on Earth. So the Anthropocene, he predicted the impact that people would have on plants and animals and the Earth, the first person to predict human-induced climate change. So a very, very good book. I read this book and shortly after I read this book, I had my own Alexander von Humboldt moment. So I was fortunate enough, I tagged along with a friend of mine to Pink Mountain. So my friend Ron Long was doing and has been doing research on Pink Mountain for a number of years. This is in Northern BC. This is between Fort St. John and Fort Nelson. And it's just off the Alaska Highway. It's in the foothills of the Northern Rockies. And Pink Mountain has a really interesting plant community. It has plants that you would see in the Arctic latitudes, at sea level, at Arctic tundra, overlapping, converging with plants that you see from the Rocky Mountains. And so you have a really interesting spectrum, just as Arctic flora and boreal flora kind of mix. And he's been curious as to why, like of all the places he's visited, he's seen so much plant diversity at Pink Mountain and he was curious to know why. So he invited me along to do soil inventory and to help answer that piece. Anyhow, so I asked all those questions, like, you know, how for soil, how is, has the geology, you know, the parent material, the topography, the climate, the bio of the time, how have those factors influenced the soil? And just in a nutshell here, the parent materials, check this out. This is, these are mineral deposits from 60 million years ago. You can see wave ripples and this is at 6,000 feet and you can see wave ripples from sands that were deposited 60 million years ago, 60 million years ago in shallow seas. When this part of the world was not, you know, it's risen out of the ground just with, you know, continental movement. But 60 million years ago, this area was flat and the seas were very shallow and because of that, they're very warm and there wasn't a lot of life. So there was bacteria that produced a lot of, you know, change the acidity of the water. The water was really, really acidic. And so the materials here, this sandstone deposit here, 60 million years ago, the soils from this, the pH is like 3.3, which is like grapefruit juice. I literally tested water from soil testing and it tasted like grapefruit juice. And also in the same region, you have limestone and limestone was a deposited 250 million years ago in deeper seas where there was a lot of plant and animal life and therefore a lot of calcium deposits from all of the shellfish, for example. So look at this. This is actually at 7,000 feet elevation and there is a fossilized clamshell from 250 million years ago. So these are the perimeters from the soil and they're deposited in these layers and you can see here the effects of the climate over time. And so this is a circ, these are pictures we took from a helicopter. It was fantastic. Door removed, like hanging out the side of a helicopter, touring around these mountains in the Northern Rockies. And you can see this circ, how glaciers just ripped apart the mountain. And you can see the scree slope from all the debris that's been eroding away and tumbling. So you've got those layers of materials and they're broken and they're tumbling down and the rocks are breaking into smaller particles. And what ends up happening is the wind hits those scree slopes, carries those sands from those perimeters and deposits them along the top ridge and the backside of the mountain. And so from viewers left to right, that's West to East and the wind in the summer comes from the West and transports those particles onto the top of the mountain. And I was really curious about the wind on the faces of those circs. The wind might be blowing 25 kilometers an hour, in this case 11, 12 kilometers an hour, but at the very top along the ridge, there's no wind really low down. And I sat one time with my feet dangling over one of these circs, eating a banana and there was butterflies like right at the ground level and my hair was blowing. And I thought, that's strange. And then it occurred to me that there's this buffered zone that is very, very close to the ground. The wind is hitting the face of the circ. It's creating turbulence and behind that turbulence is a protected zone where the wind shoots over. And in that protected zone is where all these sand particles are laying down and this has been happening since the last period of glaciation. So this has been like 10, 12, 13,000 years of sand particles laying down on moss and lichen. The moss and lichen decomposing, the sand particles, plants growing in that decomposition. I had a soil probe three feet down into this soil 10,000 years of sand deposits and dropping into this wind buffered zone and you get three feet of rich soil. And along these ridges you get this incredible plant life and it is the paramaterial, the geology like all like the materials I told you about the topography, the fact that it is steep and all these rocks tumbling and breaking because of the gravity and also the wind hitting the side of that vertical face creating the turbulence and the climate, the wind coming off the ocean. That's geographical, right? And it's transporting particles and you get winter that creates ice that melts and then that water flows down those faces and breaks particles up even still and along the top you've got all these plants and you've got stone sheep and caribou and elk walking along, tumbling the rocks defecating and urinating, cycling nutrients, eating plants and all of this is happening over time. That was my Van Humboldt epiphany on Pink Mountain. And the thing is, is that you can do this at Lighthouse Park. You can do this at Lighthouse Park. You go to Lighthouse Park and you ask yourself how is the geology like? And you've got all this granitic stone here and the topography, it's not only does it have it's at the base of basically, you know the mountains of Cypress Bull Park and it has valleys within it and these coves and a high point and a south side and a west side and an east side and a north side and we're a sub Mediterranean climate so it's quite dry in the summertime and because of that we're in a region of, there's like fire ecology associated with Lighthouse Park and in the summer you get wind off the water and all these same things. You can ask yourself, right? And think about what's happening over time in the park. So another question that Humboldt asked which is a fascinating passage in the book. He is looking at these palm trees and I think he's in Bolivia and he's just sort of listing all the ways that the environment has affected the adaptation strategy of the palm. So I like this every time you, if you look at a plant if you look at a plant everything about that plant is a strategy for it to survive in its environment. And so it's really fun and I know when I started learning this I remember the first time I thought, okay so the reason why those leaves are big is because they have to collect light in the shade and the reason why these leaves are small is because they're adapted to full sun and they don't need that. And so that's just a simple example of how the environment affects the way the shapes of plants. But the other thing to consider is how do plants affect their environment? And that is something that is interesting to think about. And here's an example and I'll bring this back to Lighthouse Park but this is the Sonora Desert in California and this is Creosote Bush. So neat story here with Creosote Bush. If you notice there's all these Creosote Bushes here in this flat desert area and they're all about 50 to 100 feet apart and you ask yourself why? Well, they have very, very, very shallow roots and the roots go out about 30, 40 feet in radius from the plant. That way when it rains and the rain doesn't go very deep into the soil but they've got a big, big footprint where they can catch the rain. So they excrete chemicals in the roots that are actually toxic to their own species. So that way where the root system of one plant ends the root system of another plant will, they'll meet and they won't interfere with each other. And so you don't get Creosote Bushes growing very close together, which is interesting and it gives them enough space. They don't have to compete with their own species. So they're a sub shrub where they're close to the ground and it's cooler and being close to the ground any of their, any of the foliage that they create that dies and falls off doesn't get blown away. It actually accumulates in its own mounted shell. And so you can imagine that it's sand and it's windy all around, but underneath its own little canopy it's created its own environment. The soil is better. It's habitat for snakes and birds and insects and rodents. And, and so there's all this stuff going on here, right? Creosote Bush has a really, it's called Creosote Bush. It smells like Creosote and that actually these aromatic oils in this environment where it's like harshly competitive. A lot of these plants create aromatic oils that deter herbivory. So we eat a lot of herbs, you know from the similar kinds of environments like rosemary and thyme and, you know, chopped up into a recipe, it tastes good but it's not, doesn't taste good to eat. So this is a strategy to deter herbivory. Plus those oils actually clog up the pores that allow, you know, vapor loss and so they reduce moisture loss in the leaves. So everything about these plants is adapted to their environment but what's also very cool if you notice they actually impact their environment. And so here's a Creosote Bush and you can see this wedge shaped. You see it's almost like it's a long triangular shape of plants that are growing in the leeward wind protected zone of the Creosote Bush. And so the Creosote Bush actually create has an impact on its own environment. It actually creates a niche for all these plants to grow in. And oops, I went the wrong way but there you go. You can see the wind is coming from screen right to screen left and you can see all those strips of green and it's almost like a shadow from the wind. And here's my friend taking pictures of the wonderful flowers, the Ebronia and the Hespero callus. Look at that. This is, I was next in line. This was my picture but great plants growing in those strips. So very, very cool plants have the ability to affect their own environment as well. And, you know, sub shrubs are fascinating plants and I told you about how everything about a sub shrub being mounted and tight load of the ground it kind of creates its own, you know, the, you can imagine if you put your hand in there and if you didn't get bitten by a snake you'd find leaves and you'd find nutrient cycling but out in the exposed areas where it's hot and dry and windy you won't get organic accumulation or nutrient cycling. So how does this connect to Lighthouse Park? Lighthouse Park has sub shrubs and Arctostaphalus Columbiana. Harry Manzanita is a very, very, very special plant that you can find at Lighthouse Park. They're related to Arbutus. They're in the same family, Eric Casey and if you look at the bark they actually have that same kind of bronze cinnamon colored bark with exfoliating tissues but again everything about this plant is adapted to its environment and here you, the leaf posture is vertical and so leaf posture like this collects more light but a plant with a vertical leaf posture those leaves are not orientated in such a way to collect a lot of light and a lot of times plants from sunny environments have like a silverish glocus coating on the leaf to reflect light. Arctostaphalus actually has that silverish color and if you look you can see very, very small hairs and those hairs actually shade the leaves and just like fins on a radiator allow the plant to cool down in a hot sunny environment and that mounting shape is perfectly adapted to growing close to the ground but it also, it also will, you know these leaves on evergreen plants they do drop off after a few years and they will accumulate at the base underneath the shell of foliage and that allows for organic decomposition to happen in place as opposed to the wind blowing the material away and in that you get other organisms living you have bacteria and fungi and it's habitat for birds and snakes and rodents and in the wind protection behind the Arctostaphalus you'll find plants growing in that area so like it's the same thing as the desert in a way it's the same, same stuff it's very, very cool. So these plants, all plants when you observe where they grow in a natural setting they exist in these niches and it's wrong to say that a plant you know here, this is at Stanley Park and here you can see some maiden hair fern growing in a seep in the sandstone in this crevice and it's not like this plant prefers it there the thing is, is that this plant what happens in nature with plants is plants are always competing and when you see plants growing in a niche what it means is that plant has the best ability to out-compete all the other plants what's interesting about plant ecology is that in a very stable environment like underneath a forest canopy in Lighthouse Park where soil accumulation is pretty good and it rains a lot in this region and it's not protected from the wind from the tree canopy that's a very stable environment so you don't see a lot of plant diversity there I mean there's diversity but you see big patches of ferns and big patches of Mahonias but where you find you know really stressful environments you don't have these niches where competitive plants can out-compete everything so you get really interesting pockets of plants that can thrive in these particular niches and in this case it's a stressful environment and I don't have an image of this but if you walk along that bulge on the other side there's another seep and it's Boikinia growing in that seep not Maidenhair fern and so just a fascinating example of the kind of diversity that you see in a stressful environment it's all about plants being able to out-compete this little Cetimacry here is the only plant that can survive in this wind-blown landscape and look at it just thriving in that little crevice here's another example this is on the North Sea and here the North Sea doesn't have much of a tide but you can see the silver plant here in the center this is growing where the water table is very high and it's salt water does Artemisia maritima the silver foliage plant here does that prefer growing in salty soils? It needs salt as part of its metabolic processes but not that much it doesn't prefer growing in waterlogged salty soils the thing is it's the only plant that will tolerate it it's the plant that tolerates it best if you go up the grade a little bit and what I love about this site here is there's a bowl here the topography is like a bowl and the plants express the gradation in the topography so at the lowest point you see the Artemisia then you get up higher you see Angelica and you see Euphorbia pelastris and you get up even higher and you see some woody plants and such a fun thing to look at to look at the topography and look at what's going on there so when you think about niches at Lighthouse Park you know there the reason why you see Arbutus manzisi is that it doesn't prefer growing in crevices it you know it definitely needs good drainage and it definitely you know it but this is one of the only plants that will actually has the ability to out-compete in the crevices of rock that exists in between the outcropping of granitic bedrock and so you know you can grow Arbutus manzisi in a nursery pot in peat and perlite and water and fertilizer and grow really well it probably prefers that but at Lighthouse Park it is the only plant that has the ability to out-compete others in these crevices and you'll see also you'll see Douglas firs growing in those crevices but because it is a harsh environment out on the edge of Lighthouse Park Douglas fir doesn't have the ability to out-compete Arbutus in the same way you go inland onto the park a little bit where the soils are better and you see a very competitive stand of Douglas fir that will out-shade Arbutus manzisi but out on the edge where there's more wind and it's the rock is you know out-exposed and there's less organic accumulation and oh you're dealing with these crevices you see more diversity out on the edge than you do inside because of the conditions and it's really interesting to take a look I just love looking at plants growing in harsh environments in these crevices of rock you've got this is at Lighthouse Park you've got Hukera that'll grow in these crevices you've got in seeps out there you have a monkey flower erythranthi growing where there's water seeping out through crevices you have oh my God you've got the wonderful lichens and mosses that grow on the rock and what's actually really troubling I think about Lighthouse Park is the amount of foot traffic out on the outcrop rock because like I showed you in a previous Lighthouse Park series talk if you go up to the Sunshine Coast for example at Francis Point or Daniel Point these are the examples I showed you earlier where there's less foot traffic the outcrop of rock is actually covered in this crust of lichen and moss and at Lighthouse Park just from the amount of visitation and foot traffic that crust of lichen and moss doesn't exist in the same way and it is incredible in fact when you think about sheets of rock what can grow on a sheet of rock moss and lichen so moss and lichen grow on that rock and then the wind coming off the water and the waves blasting against the rock those activities break the rock up and there's you know tidal action on beach shores where there's tumbling rocks all of that rock is being broken down into sand and those sand particles get blown and they get caught in the moss and the lichen and so then you start having soil accumulating in the moss and lichen decomposes and plants grow in there and you've got roots growing and decomposing and over time you actually get a crust of soil and you have habitat for plants and it's a very fragile habitat it'll take 10,000 years for that to you know to evolve but you know one person scraping it away with their foot and it's gone and in that moss and lichen at Lighthouse Park and these are all pictures I've taken from Lighthouse Park you have incredible plants that grow like this Coridalis Simperverans which is that'll be flowering very shortly and what a precious little plant growing in these lovely lichen and moss beds like oh my God they are so beautiful they really are and Brodea oh this is such a great bulbous plant this is a bulb and so bulbs geophytes they are adapted to stressful environments so Brodea will be flowering soon and you know like a tulip or daffodil it will produce leaves and then it'll flower but then when the conditions get too dry for the plant to grow it will retract all of the you know the the food the carbohydrates that it makes in its leaves and go into a period of dormancy and wait until the next opportunity next spring to grow and flower so its whole life cycle is adapted to the niche in the season you know um Lighthouse Park it's very very hard to find Brodea if you go to some of these other places you know where there's less fewer people you will see more lichen more moss and more Brodea but Lighthouse Park is very difficult you can find it but it's very difficult to find and it's because that that really really precious habitat of the moss and lichen beds is gone and you know just speaking of lichen this is one of the coolest one this is called um reindeer moss cladonia ranger rangerferena lichen is very interesting if you didn't know it lichen is a composite species so it is actually a a species that is made up of algae cyanobacteria and fungi and so you've got algae and fungi together manifesting as a lichen so it's kind of like this hybrid of two completely different species that exist together symbiotically and produce you know what you see as lichen which is just fascinating so other bulbous plants that will grow in these environments you have chocolate lilies as well fritillaria camcet census and this is a very very special plant you know what's really neat is the camcet census you know the camcetka from camcet census that refers to like the camcetka peninsula in in northeastern Russia what's very what's really interesting about this species and its range of distribution up into that northeastern part of of Asia is that there are a number of plants that have migrated from northeastern Asia you know the last period of glaciation along the coast there was the Beringland sea bridge of ice and a lot of plants migrated across that Beringland sea bridge down into BC Alaska you know Yukon BC and all the way down in some cases coastal strawberry frigaria chiloensis is a Stoleniferous plant and it migrated all the way across the Beringland sea bridge down Alaska one Stoleniferous leap at a time all the way down BC all the way down through California into Central America all the way down South America to the Southern tip of chilly I just love that you know when you think when you learn about plants and you learn about the stories of plants the biogeography you think about the distribution of where you see them and you see closely related plants and you think about plant migration over time and things like this fertile area you just imagine how long it took for that plant to migrate that far you know and this is not a plant that has the ability to move quickly very beautiful though and then I always I like the Arithronium at Lighthouse Park they've just finished actually now and to me they're like little ghosts of the forest they're so pretty and again these are plants that grow in that really really precious and like and it grows on the outcrop rock and then you know you've got your lilies right your Lillian Colombianum that grow in slightly deeper soils underneath the conifers and these have a wide range of distribution in western North America you know it's really fun if oh sorry haha look jumping ahead and then jumping back what's really fun about Lillian Colombianum is to observe the pattern of speckling speckling on the underside of pedals and compare it because there's a lot of they express themselves differently like you know just like all of us we all look a little different well lilies the sometimes you'll see them where the speckles are really really concentrated or they're kind of in stripes or they're almost absent and so it's really fun to kind of look at a variety of plants and compare the speckle patterns this is nodding onion this is a lovely plant this is a really really is one of my well let's just say one of my favorite native plants but I don't know why I would say that I just I just love the dusty pink I love the nodding posture of the flowers and this actually has a wide range of distribution like you'll see this growing in the prairies for example wild what's interesting about plants and when you observe plants is their social ability like how this is a photo from Armenia and this is interesting so this is in the center of this depression this is calthopelastris growing where it's really wet and you can see that where the calthopelastris stops and the there's a band in the middle where you can see a little bit of pink where my friend Julia you can't really see but all of this in here is pink there's primulism there and then the premulus stop and then it's renunculus and what's really interesting about this stops and another one starts and the line between them is is very very abrupt and that's that's naturally occurring but what's interesting is you don't always whoops sorry about that you don't always see that for example look at this this is on the black sea and this is sea holly and this is the high tide line and you've got to see holly like growing right in the sand you can grow this in your garden people do and holly starting to mingle a little bit with the grasses and then you at the top of the dune you can see that there is clearly a point where there's more grasses than Eringium but what you see is a mingling a sociability where it's hard to really identify exactly where the grass stops and the Eringium starts and I really enjoy observing that this this transition this threshold of one species into another sometimes that to me that is what I understand to be a plant sociability like the ability of plants to kind of grow with each other and mingle and you know different plants have like the in in this example health of illustrious it does not have very sociable qualities it's a big mounding plant it will just smother things right whereas the Eringium is loose and airy and the grasses are too so they have the they just physically and again this is a low resource environment and you have more diversity in a small space high resource environment you got lots of water you have one competitive plant that just dominates so again another example of how in a high diversity environment you have more sorry in a in a low resource environment you have more diversity and that is exemplified here this is on the leeward side of that same dune and you can see how many species can we see I see euphobia I see stackies I see a ringium I see coliria I see another grass that I can't identify there's probably about 12 species of plants there that's a lot of diversity for for one plant community whereas where the resource like if you go further inland here where you can see there's more moisture it's all going to be ash trees for example less diversity and you know an example of this at Lighthouse park which is really interesting I'm really fascinated with you know the the occurrence of plants within a community and so you think about the trees that you see at Lighthouse park you've got the conifers the big species you've got Douglas fur you've got Western Red Cedar you've got Western Hemlock and also within that you have Pacific you here on the coast the Douglas fur the Western Hemlock the Western stands and they will either be like where it's wet or you'll see more Red Cedars where it's dry you'll see more Douglas furs but you'll see stands of trees where you can stand in one place and you could count you know dozens of one species whereas Pacific you Texas Preva folia within that same matrix of plants you're just going to see it occurring infrequently and that's what's makes a really special tree to find is that it does and that is an element of social ability like how plants mix and you know the occurrence the patterns and that is so much fun to observe is to go into a place like let us park look at you know first of all take an inventory of what you're seeing and then look for patterns look for those shelter zones in the wind look for that rate of occurrence look for you know the mingling of species there's just it's really also something to consider and this is I'm telling you Alexander von Humboldt was you know thinking of many things and one of my favorite I've got one of these posters in my office and this is a drawing that he has done a diagram and you can see that there is a coast on your left and you know then it rises up into a mountain there is a dormant volcano an active volcano and then on the back side of that you have the the the wind protected the what's the word sorry the the rain shadow the rain shadow of the mountains and so what he has done though is is he's drawn this diagram of the coast the grade in elevation the top of the mountain and the rain shadow of the other side and these tables on the left and the right indicate the species that you would observe at different aspects and different elevations and on both sides and that is just like and and he's done birds and plants and animals and temperatures and elevations and you know fascinating stuff soil conditions so here's an example this is in western Asia and this is just you know an abstract example here but here's a hill and this is the south side and at the base you see these purple flowers this is an orchid this is Dactylariza and it grows you know a month before this this was an April but a month before there was snow up here melting and so all that water drained down and at the bottom of the slope it's still wet and the Dactylariza thrives in moist soil so it's growing where it's wet but then you go up a little higher and you don't see any Dactylariza can you see this red peppering throughout this on the mid range of the mountain and you know what that is that's tulips and myosotis forget me nots growing in the wild this is tulipa julia and myosotis asiaticus my orientalis one of those two I forget anyhow but they're growing you know about 200 feet higher than the orchids because it's drier here and so this is the Humboldt diagram this is how as you go up you notice different species and you can do this at Lighthouse Park you start off where it's low and you walk up and you just watch the species change and if you take that all the way up to say Black Mountain in West Vancouver you go higher up into Cyprus you know Bull Provincial Park into Cyprus Bull you will see species change as you go up higher in elevation you will see Red Alder graduate to Sitka Alder you will see Western Hemlock graduate to Mountain Hemlock you will see you know fewer Douglas furs as you get up even higher you'll see subalpine for you know you see the same transition and on that south face because it's hot and dry you don't get a lot of organic decomposition because you know plant leaves the detritus from dead plant leaves dries up and blows away and it doesn't stay put and decompose too dry too windy you get under the top and it's flat and there had been snow melted there recently and so it's still quite it's still moist and you can see the plant community changes and here you have a high resource environment it's flat the soil is deep and it's moist and you see all of this prengus here which looks like dill and it's dominating and high resource low diversity down on this side you've got low resources and much higher diversity so you go up and over and onto the north side and it's a whole different plant community because it's shaded it's moist there's decomposition and the soil is black because of all of that and you've got a whole different plant community and you can do the same thing you can observe these things on all the different aspects of Lighthouse Park look at that you know the same hill two different sides two different soils so same thing here and you've got like these valleys you know you've got the main pathway which is a valley you've got this valley that goes up here where I think on the last talk I was showing you how in here you've got you know lots of Western Red cedar and up higher you've got Douglas furs and so you know there's topography here and how much fun would it be to explore the whole park and take an inventory of what you see on the south side the west side the top the back side so there you go things are always cycling in nature and so here's a beach forest with rhoded entrance and these are just other places I've been I don't actually have a big you know inventory of pictures from Lighthouse Park but it's kind of fun to just sort of see you know see these systems happening in other environments and then think of Lighthouse Park we've got beach trees they produce so much foliage and all that biomass is coming you know think about where all that biomass is coming from that is nutrients from the soil carbon from the air hydrogen from the water combining to make carbohydrates and tissues and all of that leaf and wood eventually dies falls is decomposes and you've got plants leaf litter and there's just this constant cycle happening of all those of of carbon of water of all the nutrients nitrogen phosphorus potassium calcium magnesium sulfur cobalt aluminum you know it's all cycling and you can see the same process at Lighthouse Park you see a dead tree or dying tree and you know the gardener and you says oh that's terrible you know the trees are dying but you know it's so important understand the role of decay in a healthy plant community and so that is a normal process and that is an important process as part of the cycling of carbon and nutrients recruitment so this is multiple generations and look at this you've got this Choy a cactus look at all of its it's spawn at its base but the wind is blowing these plants I love this because you've got this and again the pattern of occurrence here is triangular shape and that is all wind form but you've got mother plants and daughter plants and granddaughter plants and they're all moving in the wind a healthy plant community has plants of many different ages and same thing here with the Saguaro cactuses you've got it's Saguaro cactuses they germinate every you know a few dozen years you get a good year and you get a another generation of Saguaro cactuses so in a healthy Saguaro forest you've got older Saguaro's with multiple branches you've got middle-aged ones with just like one shoot in a couple of nubs and then young ones just single shoot Saguaro's so Lighthouse Park you know it's old growth forest you've got trees that are 500 plus years old and of ultimately those trees will you know die and you'll see young Douglas furs old Douglas furs you'll see all you know multiple and the interconnectedness of everything and this was if you read the invention of nature one of the big themes that humble touches on is the interconnectedness of everything and that goes back to the geology the topography the climate the bio out of the time all of those factors interconnected and here's an example of this lovely plant in the family oral bank case ye it's parasitic relationship with the arrow doesn't even have leaves gets all of its nutrients from the arrow and you see that at Lighthouse Park you see coral risa and we talked about coral risa and its relationship with Douglas fur and hemlocks and you know a non photosynthetic plant tapped into the trees and deriving nutrients from the trees and you see things like big leaf maple and big leaf maple will exude calcium and magnesium through its bark and there's nutrient there on this big horizontal limb you get moss that grows and holds moisture and you get licorice for growing on specifically big leaf maple because of the texture of the bark and the exudation of nutrients and last week we talked about the interconnectedness of trees and their fungal networks and we talked about Michael risa and how trees are there's an you know a network of trees in the forest and we looked at the example of living it's been cut down keeps growing because it's pulling nutrients from another tree within its network through that network of fungal mycelium amazing and all of this and the great thing about plant ecology is that it is dynamic it is changing over time it is never the same and so you know think about Lighthouse Park actually in nature you have successive plant communities that will build on one another and then you have a disturbance and the whole thing gets reset to zero so at Lighthouse Park a disturbance there could be a major storm could be a wind storm that blows trees over it could be a forest fire and our region is you know the plant community is adapted to fire the cycle of fire and so you get a forest and it burns and you've got you know an absence of conifers but you get all the herbaceous plants and elders where the soil is good and you get a lot of Arbutus that respond to that disturbance and then over time what happens is you get a lot of you know you get woody plants that like the Douglas firs start growing in the crevices again and they'll shade out the Arbutus and over time the Doug firs will get old be hundreds of years old and they get wind pruned and thin and they fall over so you've got this constant evolution of plant succession and it is never never the same things are always changing in nature and so those are the things that I think of when I'm exploring a wilderness plant area right like and that's what Lighthouse Park is it's a little fragment of wilderness in West Vancouver and we have access to this and when you explore it you can think about all of those things you can ask yourself how does the geology how does the topography how does the climate how does the other plants and animals the biota how is that all impacting what I see and how is that changing over time how much time did it take for that to you know to happen and think about all of the questions that Humboldt asked like how is the environment shaping the plants and I'm seeing how are these plants adapted to this environment and what opportunities are they providing for other plants how are the plants shaping the environment right so you know these are the things that I ask when I go into a wilderness area and look at plants and it is so much fun and I hope that when you go to lighthouse park you can think about you know the park differently and ask yourself these very same questions it it really makes a visit to any natural place so rich you can do it on your own or you can have a conversation with somebody else about those things and either way it's just a lot of fun. Thank you very much that's all I got to say about the ecology of lighthouse park for today I wonder what questions we have here so it says here with the flowers being pollinated and blown off the big leaf maples at this time of year where to where do the seed keys come from in the trees in autumn well okay no that's a good question so the life cycle the question here is you know you've got the pollen that's blowing around now but you've got the seeds in the fall right and so what's going on there so big leaf maples are when pollinated they have incredibly beautiful pendulous race seems of chartreuse flowers and you know right now people have you know allergies because of the pollen and what's happening is the male male flowers once you have a pollen grain that goes down the pollen tube and fertilizes the ovary then you get the development of a seed and it takes it takes basically all of the season for that seed to develop and mature properly and then develop all of the structures like the wings on the Samara that basically will in the fall in the winter that will the seed can be dispersed through its mechanism of flight but it takes all summer for that embryo to develop into a seed and so so that's that's what's happening there it just it's it's what's really fun to also think about with plants is to ask yourself what do I know about this plant and its life cycle through the year or it's you know is it when is it vegetative when is it reproductive when is it producing fruit you know like these are really neat questions question here like in themselves cause the rock to break down and the answer is yes so what's really neat about lighthouse park is you've got these slabs of outcrop granitic bedrock and that is the parent material that ultimately will be the soil that you can find you know underneath the trees in the park where you you can imagine there's depth of soil all of those particles basically came from that rock and what are the processes that are turning the rock into soil it's the erosion from wind it's like literally the wind will actually move particles and break the rock down over thousands of years it's the waves blasting against the rocks it's the you know they the expansion and contraction when they get warm they expand when they get cold they contract and over years you get cracks and and plants will root down into those cracks and drive those cracks apart and basically break off pieces of rock that will tumble down and you know get wave eroded so those are all processes but also the moss and lichen will excrete chemicals and there's chemical weathering as well so there's you know acids and other chemicals that will break down the rock and so the lichen and the mosses will contribute towards the chemical weathering of rock and they will also contribute towards the plants like you know they provide a surface will stick to and get trapped in and that provides a thin layer of soil for plants to grow in and those plants will ultimately some of them are big and some of them are small but they will root into crevices and those crevices break open and so there's all these processes and it's the climate it's the other biota the plants it's the topography you know when things break and fall there's like gravity that's causing that to happen and that's happening over time and the parent material we've got geology topography climate biota time all of that happening with lichen on rock you know and moss on rock says here does moss grow differently on various species of trees and the answer is yes so I am not an expert on mosses and lichens but I have friends who are and it is fascinating because you know there are mosses that will grow in a wide range of habitats and there are some that are very specific to certain niches and lichens as well and you know that is not my expertise but friends friends of mine who are really you know really really like I've got a friend who's a master's degree biologist and he's fascinating he's just a fascinating guy he came up to Pink Mountain with us and did an inventory of mosses on on Pink Mountain and described a new species for that region and so you know fascinating stuff and then it says here thanks Eagan our Pacific U is under threat and I would say that I would say the answer to that is are they under threat there's a lot of Pacific U in BC in fact if you go up to you know the rocky mountains like up by Banff and Jasper for example it's interesting because here Pacific U occurs infrequently but in other parts of the province you'll find like Pacific U growing in in dense tickets that's another interesting thing like if you were really knowledgeable about the plants at Lighthouse Park and you understand that composition when you go elsewhere and in BC or Western North America you will say the same species growing in a different plant community and they behave differently like a good example of that would be Saskatoon you can see Saskatoon in Lighthouse Park where it's growing on the rock I've seen it growing like a prostrate like you know like a ground covering you know woody plant Saskatoon elsewhere can be a big almost tree like shrub you know I'd say Pacific U are probably you know in Lighthouse Park there's that's something that is very special because you know if you removed five of them that might be a large percentage of that that you know areas population but they do occur and frequently on the North Shore Mountains and you you can easily find them so I wouldn't say they're under threat in your background photos there are some pine trees are those shorepines and are those the same trees that grow in peat bogs yes they are shorepines and Pineus Contorta is a very interesting species Pineus Contorta has the conditions so in fact behind in my headshot here that looks like a Pineus Contorta growing out of the rock in a crevice and it is adapted to the salt spray and will grow out of like you know in the like wind sheared you know no soil but it'll also grow in a bog and it's one of the few pines it's adapted to poorly aerated soils that are waterlogged and then last week we talked about or on the coast shore pine is has a different form but if you go into the rain shadow of the cascade mountains and in the cascade mountains you see large pole pine same species different subspecies so that's Pineus Contorta subspecies Latifolia as opposed to the Pineus Contorta subspecies Contorta down here and then that same species going down into California you get subspecies Belander eye subspecies Miriana there's another one and I can't think of it right now and it's the same species that expresses itself differently in different regions the neat neat tree another question where would we be likely to find the arctostaphalus on south facing slopes so yeah they're Lytles Park I know where there's some arctostaphalus Colombiana growing and they're growing out in the outcrop and on the south side on the west side there's not a lot it's a plant that you know would also not occur that in you know very big solid masses one thing that's really sad is the biggest one that I know of is actually pretty easy to get to and I've been looking at that plant for years and about five years ago I saw it had such a nice form and a really big trunk like this was like an old growth manzanita and I saw some damage from clearly from somebody who pushed their way in to get a picture right and so that was disappointing but it's a lovely plant and when it flowers in the spring it's very pretty the bark is lovely yeah just hunt for them hunt for them and and don't step on their roots all right okay well that is a question yeah thank you I'm going to bring Alexandra Manchinian I just take a minute here she comes so Alexandra Manchini is the president of the Lighthouse Park Preservation Society and he's just going to tell us a little bit hear me hi Alexandra I can hear you now I'm just trying to get my camera to go oh dear okay well it if that might be that might be my problem it says the host has stopped it that's correct okay definitely my problem then well why don't you just talk and I will work on getting you um that's fine scenes so people can see your face that's fine it's it's not essential as long as everyone can hear me well first of all I want to say thank you to you and for an amazing presentation I learned so much from that thank you so much it was excellent thanks and so it's a hard act to follow for me but I'll do my best to tell you a little bit about our society the lighthouse park preservation society so we we started as a formal society as a registered charity in 1998 so we're up to 22 years now and it is a 100 percent volunteer effort that is involved in this society we have no paid employees on our board of directors and also in in many other elements of what we do our focus when we got started many years ago I've been involved with the society not for the entire 22 years but for 15 years now and our focus initially was to start of course the reason for the society is to focus on the preservation of the natural environment in lighthouse park and the early activities plants that many of you know well English Ivy Holly Laurel Scotch Broom things like that over the years as as large patches of say ground cover Ivy were removed it was felt that there was a need for restoration plantings in some areas and we started doing that replacing the monoculture of Ivy with some a mixture of nice native we've been very successful over all these years and those of you who enjoy going to lighthouse park can can appreciate what has been maintained if you compare to some other other beautiful areas but haven't had as much volunteer support perhaps like Stanley Park we don't have the in the Ivy Invasion in lighthouse Park the way they still do in Stanley Park so we feel very proud of what we've accomplished over the years in 2005 we expanded our scope to adopt five more neighborhood parks that are adjoining or very close to lighthouse Park and the the primary reason at the beginning was to prevent invasion into lighthouse Park of the plants that were in these other parks that were invasive species so the parks that we adopted at that time was Caulfield Park Clutchman Trails The Dale and North Piccadilly Park and another upside of having adopted these parks is that I think we have been able to improve the environment well enough to establish robust wildlife corridors as well so it isn't just the plant community that has benefited but the the rest of the rest of the wildlife as well the birds and the mammals and the little the little critters so we're very pleased with that I I should mention though I got a bit ahead of myself here that as a volunteer group we must work under the supervision of the district of West Vancouver this is the parks belong to the district of West Vancouver and and therefore we coordinate all our work with them and they've been very supportive over the years of everything we have done we have also expanded our focus into providing educational programs newsletter twice a year is produced we have a speaker series of talks that we often host at the West Vancouver Memorial Library and we have some in the park as well and we work extensively with the schools in West Vancouver to get the students involved in many hands-on projects and we've provided some lectures in the classroom so I just want to end by mentioning our website if if you would like to go and and look at information on that website it's Triple W L P P S or Lighthouse Park Preservation Society .ca and there are ways that you could help our society if you're interested to to help us first of all we're always looking for more members our membership fees are very modest so but that is one option you could be a member we also are looking for volunteers and you do not have to be a member to become a volunteer and in volunteering we have of course our work parties in the parks but we also have other administrative roles for the society if you in the park so I want to thank all our volunteers who for 22 years have worked so hard to help keep Lighthouse Park a beautiful park that it still is today our work is not done we will continue we're on a bit of a hiatus right now because of the COVID-19 situation but a few of us are itching to get into the park to get the Scotch broom that's in bloom at the moment but we won't be able to host a a usual work party this year and with that I'll say thank you thank you Alexandra I'm very sorry I never got your video ready but we've heard you loud and clear and thank you for all the good information about your society and doing wonderful work to preserve Lighthouse Park so thanks very much and yeah I think that's it for today and thank you Eagan it's been so much fun to do this series with you and I I have learned so much and I know from all the comments I've thought from the attendees that have really enjoyed it so thank you so much for for doing that and I just want to let everybody know that I have recorded today's webinar and it'll be up on the West Vancouver Memorial Library YouTube channel where you can actually find last week's webinar as well and that's it and and spending your Sunday afternoon with us it's been really great to connect the library as you know is close to the moment and we're doing as much as we can virtually there's more great programs coming up so check out our website for that okay great thanks very much I'll just log off now bye bye thanks so long bye everybody bye thanks to see Alexandra thanks everyone bye bye