WELCOME 2012 Trainees!

1. WELCOME 2012 Trainees!

2. THANK YOU!

3. CORE THEMES • Everything is connected • Nature is dynamic • Human values impact natural systems

4. Pennsylvania Master Naturalist Understanding Ecoregions “In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.” --Rachel Carson

8. Ecoregions bring order to something complex – the natural landscape.

9. Classifying Ecoregions

11. Pennsylvania Level II Ecoregions

12. Pennsylvania Level III Ecoregions

13. Southeastern and Coastal Plains

14. Northern PiedmontPiedmont Upland, Piedmont Limestone/ Dolomite Lowland, Triassic Lowland

15. Northern PiedmontPiedmont Uplands • Rounded hills, low ridges, high relief and narrow valleys. • Substantially higher relief than neighboring ecoregions. • Folded and faulted paleozoic and precambrian metamorphic rock. • Deep Ultisols and Inceptisols are common soils. Chrome soils from serpentinite also occur. • The Chrome soils support eastern serpentine barrens (Chester, Delaware, and Lancaster counties)

16. Northern PiedmontPiedmont Limestone/Dolomite Lowlands • Nearly level, undulating terrain consisting of sink holes, caverns, and disappearing streams. • Ordovician limestone predominates, dolomite and shale also occur. • Soils are derived largely from carbonate rock and are very fertile. • Soils support a natural vegetation of Appalachian Oak Forest (white and red oak), which has been almost entirely replaced by general farming.

17. Northern PiedmontTriassic Lowlands • Wide undulating ridges, broad valleys, limited local relief. • Underlain by sedimentary rock. • Soils are derived triassic sandstone, shale, siltstone, and argillite. • Soils support a natural vegetation of Appalachian Oak forest (dominated by red and white oaks). • Supports a mosaic of dairy farms, houses, and woodland.

18. Natural Communities of the Northern Piedmont

19. Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain:Delaware River Terraces & Uplands

20. Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain:Delaware River Terraces & Uplands • Low, nearly level terraces. • Ocean modified climate. • Saline marsh deposits dominate; alluvial and estuarine sand and silt also widespread. • Underlain by unconsolidated and easily eroded Quaternary gravels, sands and silts.

21. Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain:Delaware River Terraces & Uplands

22. 1777 2007

23. Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain:Delaware River Terraces & Uplands King Rail Ralas elegans elegans Coastal Plain Leopard Frog Rana utricularia Red-bellied Turtle Pseudemys rubriventris Short-eared Owl Asioflammeusflammeus Bog Turtle Clemmys muhlenbergii

24. PA Endangered Plants river bank quillwort Isoetes riparia swamp beggar-ticks Bidens bidentoides Arrowhead Sagittaria calycina coast violet Viola brittoniana

26. The Urban Ecosystem Biological Social Physical/Built