Sense of Place

Tag: climate-change

  • Outside the Box: Range, Roads, and the Future of the Eastern Box Turtle

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    Nicolette Cagle
    in

    by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D. In the first post of the Eastern Box Turtle series, we explored the evolutionary history of box turtles, from their origins as chunky, shellless, toothed, lizard-like creatures to the emergence of the domed, hinged, beaked turtles we recognize today. We followed that story from the earliest turtle-line reptiles of deep…

  • When Spring Comes Early: Shifting Bloom Times of Piedmont Ephemerals

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    Nicolette Cagle
    in

    Spring ephemerals are woodland plants that bloom early in Spring, capturing sunlight that hits the forest floor before the trees leaf out. Some of these ephemerals, like Trout Lilies (Erythronium sp.) have colonies that are over 100 years old! We see spring ephemerals, their delicate leaves and incandescent flowers, during their epigeous or above ground…

  • Whitebark Pine Ecology

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    Nicolette Cagle
    in

    The Whitebark Pine (Pinus albicaulis) is a keystone species in the sub-alpine forests from western Wyoming north to central British Columbia and Alberta. It can also be found at the timberline in the Cascades (think: BC down to the Sierra Nevada) and some mountains between the Cascades and the Rockies. The Whitebark Pine has been…