Siderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis13h ago

Hey, #ecologist fediverse! I have a question about the biome(s) of Northeast US and Eastern Canada.

I grew up in New England, but when I was 15 I moved to California (1986) and I had a biology teacher who said something interesting in passing about the predominant biome of New England: that unlike the forested parts of England and Western Europe, pretty much all the nutrients in our mixed coniferous/deciduous forests were actually in the trees and other botanical growth. As opposed to the soil.

And this is one of the reasons that early white colonists struggled mightily with agriculture here. They would clear the trees and underbrush, and assume that the soil that grew them so tall would also do likewise to their wheat and vegetables. Which it did not.

Can any of you confirm or deny this? I would love a pointer to a paper that makes this contention or explains it – or debunks it.

Show threadDeborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦12h ago
@siderea @mayintoronto not a scientist, but I'll mention that the glaciation of the Canadian Shield scraped away so much topsoil, down to bare rock in some places ... I wonder if that's why?
Show threadSiderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis

@deborahh The area I am asking about is very much not part of the Canadian Shield; indeed, part of why I'm interested in the question has to do with the history of agriculture in Québec, specifically the part of it that was part of the Canadian Shield vs the part that wasn't (and was adjacent to New England.)

@mayintoronto

3:48amWeb
Show threadDeborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦7h ago
@siderea @mayintoronto oh! Interesting!
Show threadDeborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦7h ago

@siderea @mayintoronto. I grew up on the South Shore of the St. Lawrence, which this map seems to indicate is outside the boundary of the Canadian Shield (unlike most of Quebec). I'm surprised to find that my home was on land that's not part of the Canadian Shield.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Canadian-Shield

On the prairies (at least, historically) farmers had rich, dark soil topsoil to work with. Ours was a light, sandy brown. Very different. And, yes, rocky.

Canadian Shield | Definition, Location, Map, Landforms, & Facts | Britannica

Canadian Shield, one of the world’s largest geologic continental shields, centered on Hudson Bay and extending for 8 million square km (3 million square miles) over eastern, central, and northwestern Canada from the Great Lakes to the Canadian Arctic and into Greenland, with small extensions into the northern U.S.

Encyclopedia Britannica
Show threadDeborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦7h ago
@siderea it sounds like maybe you are talking about the "Appalachian Uplands"? https://atlas.gc.ca/phys/en/index.html#AppalachianUplands
Physiographic Regions | Natural Resources Canada

Natural Resources Canada. The Atlas of Canada. Physiographic Regions of Canada

Show threadSiderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis5h ago
@deborahh A ha! That, and the part of the St Lawrence Lowlands just north of the US.