Thoughts on Ecology

When I was in middle school (we called it junior high then) my oldest brother was in college, majoring in biology. I remember him coming home with his ecology book. It was entitled Ecology and Field Biology, by Robert Leo Smith.

Its dust cover had a West Virginia stream on the front, reflecting the image of the surrounding woods. I was entranced. I got to browse through the book often and found the contents much more interesting than 8th grade science. Growing up on a wonderful small farm with a wood lot and a small creek and pasture, I could relate to the book. It pretty well cemented a desire to major in some area of the natural sciences when I got to college.

Move forward several decades; I had a good career in soil and environmental sciences and I discovered the study of bryophytes. One thing that drew me to bryophytes is how niche oriented these organisms are. Different bryophytes in different niches, with niches all over the place. My mind went back to how ecology and field biology related to these small plants. But first I had to learn how to identify them with a fair amount of confidence – no small task!

Good fortune had me work with Brian Gara, who was the wetland ecologist at Ohio EPA where I worked. He brought me in to assist with a large wetland survey in Ohio, because of my soils background. Knowing of my interest in bryophytes, he suggested looking at bryophytes as an indicator of wetland quality in the survey. The rest is history. The study was quite successful, showing a high correlation between wetland quality and the bryophytecommunity (combination of diversity and FQAI). This, and any ecological study of mosses in Ohio, is greatly enhanced by the development of a Floristic Quality Assessment Index (FQAI) for the state of Ohio by Barb Andreas.

The study was very interesting to me but a lot of work! Working with soils and identifying all those bryophytes, as well as doing GIS in the office part of my work, was a bit overwhelming at times. A large ecological project where I had to identify each bryophyte, where often 2-4 species occurred in a collected specimen, was quite time consuming.

Now that I am retired from Ohio EPA, I find myself attracted to the idea of exploring more of the ecological aspects of bryophytes, but perhaps at a much smaller scale.

I have found myself looking briefly at Janet Glime’s e-book, Bryophyte Ecology, hoping I can find time to read it soon. So far, I have just skimmed parts of it – it is a huge read. It can be found at: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/bryophyte-ecology/.

I am also thinking of some small projects that could look at bryophyte ecology – the interaction of bryophytes with the surround environment. One would be to do a small study of urban mosses, seeing how they change as one goes from neighborhoods on the outer fringe of the city and progress through different neighborhoods to the inner city. Another might be picking out a common species and doing a small field study observing how its growth habits change under different levels of light.

These are just two examples off the top of my head. I think the possibilities are many indeed. One could find new information, if not for the type of study, certainly for the locality it is done in. Results could be for personal interest, or shared here in this annual newsletter, or perhaps another small journal.

This is something I would like to explore in the next year or two. Perhaps some in OMLA would also have an interest in this aspect of bryophytes, or something similar with lichens.

-Bill Schumacher