Great Lakes Forest Change Readings

Welcome to Forest and Wildlife Ecology 875

Special Topics: Great Lakes Forest Change
Forest and Wildlife Ecology 875
Fall 2008 Professors Nancy Langston and David Mladenoff
1 credit
Wednesdays, 3:30 to 4:30 pm, A121 Russell Labs
Emails:
Nancy Langston: nelangst @ wisc.edu
David Mladenoff: djmladen @ wisc.edu
Classlist (all the emails of students and faculty enrolled): fwecol875-16-f08 @ lists.wisc.edu

Web address: http://greatlakesforests.blogspot.com/


In this one credit seminar, we will explore the historical and ecological processes shaping forest change in the Great Lakes region. Our overall goal will be to ask: what can environmental historians and historical ecologists add to each other's work? Are there certain kinds of questions about Great Lakes forests that we couldn't answer from within a single discipline?

No writing will be required; students will be expected to participate in discussions, complete readings, and lead a discussion.

We will have one field trip to Sylvania Wilderness October 17-19.

Themes/Periods

A. After the Ice: 11000 bp to 350 bp
B. Contact Era: Fur-traders, migrations of tribes, war, conflict, epidemics (the so-called pre-settlement reference period), establishment of what are now old growth forests 1650-1850
C. Lumber Era 1860s to 1910s
D. Twentieth Century: farming the cutover region, forest recovery, parks and protected areas, intensive forest management
E. What now? Consequences of change, climate change, insect epidemics, restoration, and the future