Initial Thoughts on "The Story of a Forest"

My current reading is "The Story of a Forest: Growth, Destruction and Renewal in the Upper Delaware Valley," by Robert Kuhn McGregor. Although I'm from northeast Missouri originally and have lived in Brazil a couple of times, I've made my home in New Jersey for about a decade and a half as of this post. All this time here, and I really haven't delved into the natural history of this region at all. This book is proving to be a decent starting point. As I read through it I think I'll stop at times and blog here about what I'm reading. Some of it is simply confusing to me, because it turns out that growing up on a farm surrounded by woods does not bestow any level of formal expertise in forestry as an area of study. Other parts are though-provoking, whether I find them agreeable or not.

In the category of 'confusing' I would put the writer's argument against 'ecosystem' as a concept. He traces the history of study of the natural world, focuses in on 'ecosystem,' and lays out a description that is unfamiliar to me. It seems that there has been an idea circulating in ecological studies over the years that nature follows a path to 'climax.'

Essentially, if land were a blank slate, it would follow a path from sparse vegetation through to maximum vegetation (I suppose fauna is included somewhere in there), as if it were a straight line. However, there are way too many variables from shifting weather to genuine climate shifts, and the impacts from disease and the presence of animals.

At least, that's what I got from it. I was just anxious to get to the part where he talks about the history of the forest in the Delaware Valley, and that did not disappoint. Either I knew and forgot, or never knew to begin with, that the glaciers of the last Ice Age not only scraped the land and deposited silt, stones, and debris everywhere, the massive weight of the ice actually pressed the surface down. As the ice gradually melted with the warming climate, the land heaved back up. It makes me think of  a foam mattress when someone gets up, leaving a mark that gradually fades. Except that this was on a truly massive scale.

Again, as I continue through the book, I'll comment further.