CENTRAL PARK ECOSYSTEM WORKSHEET
Gary Lincoff 2017
What is Central Park?
Central Park is a man-made construction of 19th Century Landscape Design composed of a discrete number of introduced plants and a very large number of “wild” plants, animals, fungi, protozoans, algae, and bacteria.
Where is Central Park?
Latitude: 40 N
Longitude: 74 W
Altitude: 115 Feet
Why does knowing this matter?
Plants and animals live within defined
areas – north & south, east & west,
sea-level to mountainous…..
How big is Central Park, and how much land vs water ?
Central Park is about 850 acres, 200+ of which are water features.
Inland vs Sea-shore Environments
How far is Central Park from the sea? 12 miles
Why does this matter?
Many plants & animals live in saline
(salty) environments lacking in
Central Park.
What is the average Central Park soil pH – and why does it matter to know this?
Soil pH in Central Park is acidic, in places very acidic. It favors plants in families that thrive
in acidic soils, like the Ericaceae (Heath Family), which includes Rhododendron and Azalea,
Mountain Laurel, Blueberry……Plants in the Rosaceae (Rose Family), like cherry, apple, crabapple,
hawthorn, serviceberry, blackberry and raspberry, etc., though commonly planted in the park,
grow better in more alkaline soils. Acidic soil can be limed in places to make the soil more alkaline.
Day and Night
When did it get light this morning? 5am on May 21; 6ish on Sept. 14th
When did the sun rise today (5/21): 5:34am on May 21; 6:36 am on Sept. 14th
When will the sun rise on the summer solstice? 5:25 am
When will the sun set today? 8:12 pm on May 21; 7:06 pm on Sept. 14th
When will the sun set on June 21?: 8:31
When will it actually get dark on the Summer Solstice? 9-ish
Later in Riverside Park than Central Park – and later in Pittsburgh than in NYC
When do the birds start to sing in morning? 5 am (which is 4 am EST)
What time will the fireflies appear on the Solstice? About 8:20 pm
Why do Day and Night times matter?
early spring blooming times are
triggered by lengthening daytimes
(and shortening darkness)
Composites (plants related to sunflowers
bloom after the summer solstice; most
plants bloom well before the solstice.
Chlorophyll production decreases and
shuts down within 6 weeks of the
summer solstice, well before “fall” begins,
as plants get ready for winter dormancy.
What is the annual precipitation in the park?
49 inches
This is a fraction of Rainforest totals,
but far greater than, say, Denver, CO.,
and enough to allow for a luxuriant
growth of plants, and food for animals.
Central Park Phenology: What follows what?
What organisms “appear” together
There is a predictable sequence of
plants coming into bloom or fruit, just as
there is a predictable appearance
of things that appear together, like
Shadbush (Amerlanchier) coming
Into flower about the time the shad are
Running in nearby rivers.
When do flowers open and close every day, and why is this important to know?
Some flowers open early in the morning –
Star-of-Bethlehem, for example, opens early
and closes noonish or soon afterwards.
Evening primrose and Datura (Jimsonweed)
pen in late afternoon. Some flowers in the
park don’t open until early evening.
Flowers open when their pollinators are
up and about, and close when they’re gone.
Some even help their pollinators be more
efficient (gather more pollen) by changing
color when their pollen has been taken!
What is the sequence of pollen in the air?
Week by week and hour by hour?
For example – dominant pollens:
Mid-April: maple, juniper, poplar
Late-April: maple, birch, oak
Mid-May: oak, mulberry, grasses
Pollen reports reflect wind-borne
pollen – plants that attract animal
pollinators do not matter here….
Pollen reports are made daily from LIJ
Hospital. Pollen counts are highest early
in the morning…..
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Some Central Park Ecologies to be explored
1 The wall encircling Central Park:
mosses, lichens, and ferns
2 Central Park lawns:
grasses, plantain, and clover
Clover is a soil fertilizer – with
Bacterial nitrogen-fixers on roots!
3 Dandelions create a thriving ecosystem
early bee pollen & nectar;
visited by 100 different insects!
Increases plant biodiversity many fold
Grows as a clone! Very adaptive
to lawn mowers – grows beneath blade
4 The Rhizosphere (up to 4” underground)
fungi, bacteria, protists galore
5 Wood-chip mulch about trees & shrubs
Numerous mushrooms and weeds
6 On fallen wood
Fungi as primary decomposers
7 On standing trees, living or dead
lichens, algae, epiphytic plants,
ferns, vines, fungi (as both
saprophytes & parasites)
8 Central Park Lake & other waters
cyanobacteria, protozoans,
algae, duckweed, pickerelweed,
cattail, bulrushes, arums, etc.
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Classification of organisms in Central Park
Traditional Kingdoms
Bacteria: Cyanobacteria & nitrogen-fixers
Protists: uni & multi-cellular nucleated
cells; organisms lacking an embryo
Plants
Mosses
Ferns
Conifers & other Gymnosperms
Flowering Plants (Angiosperms)
Fungi
Ascomycetes (mostly pathogens)
Basidiomycetes (mushrooms)
Animals
Invertebrates
Vertebrates
Fish
Amphibians
Reptiles
Birds
Mammals
How do VIRUSES fit into this system?
Viruses can only live inside
plants, animals, and fungi, where they
can grow and reproduce. Getting inside
depends on a variety of necessary pre-
conditions. Controlling their growth is
easier for some organisms. Viruses are
reduced “organisms,” that cannot live
and breed on their own outside a host.
Some examples of organisms in Central Park
BACTERIA
Cyanobacteria – ubiquitous in water
Rhizobia – on roots of Bean Family plants
Many are ubiquitous on & in plants & animals
PROTISTS
Protozoans ubiquitous in water
Algae – green algae are dominant, red occur
Slime molds common after rain
PLANTS
Mosses common on CP wall
Ferns: common in CP Ramble
Gymnosperms & conifers: Ginkgo
And 30 species in Pine Family
And other families
Angiosperms (Flowering Plants):
Orchids, Cattail, Trilliums
25,000 trees (at least 6” dia.)
representing 200 species
FUNGI
Ascomycetes: most plant pathogens
e.g., Black Knot of Cherry
No accurate totals known yet.
Basidiomyces: gilled mushrooms,
Boletes, polypores, crust fungi,
Jelly fungi, puffballs & stinkhorns
Approx. 500 species are recorded.
Lichens – Mostly Ascomycete fungi in
a mutualist relationsip with an
alga – on most trees and rocks…
More than 25 species….a great
comeback once sulfur-dioxide
was removed from our “air.”
Soil fungi in Central Park are equal
in biodiversity to soil fungi numbers
everywhere in soil on Earth.
There are approx.. 17,000 “species.”
ANIMALS
Invertebrates
Aquatic species, including
Crayfish and
Freshwater Jellyfish (!)
Insects
Ants, Bees, Wasps, Fireflies,
Dragonflies, Butterflies &
Moths
Spiders & Mites
Vertebrates
Fish
Largemouth Bass, goldfish,
Catfish, perch, snakehead
Amphibians: Bullfrog
Reptiles: Turtles (6), snakes (?)
Birds: 250 or so altogether (?)
Year-round: about 10?
Mammals
Bats (4), Chipmunk, Rabbit,
Mole, Muskrat, Opposum,
Norway rat, Shrew, Squirrels
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THINGS TO DO:
Use ALL your senses – sight, hearing, smell, touch
and taste
Keep a Calendar for flowering and fruiting dates,
and for everything you see, hear, smell, touch,
and taste in the park…..
10 solutions for Climate Change (Scientific American) – from 2007 – How many for you?
1) Forego Fossil Fuels; 2) Infrastructure Upgrade; 3) Move Closer to Work; 4) Consume Less; 5) Be Efficient; 6) Eat Smart, Go Vegetarian; 7) Stop Cutting Down Trees 8) Unplug; 9) One Child;
10) Future Fuels
A Few Things to do to help Central Park:
1) Become a Central Park Volunteer!
2) Become a Citizen-Scientist: Learn how
to manage our public park environment as if it is your own property. Report problems.
3) Learn to recognize tree diseases, like Dutch Elm Disease, Oak Wilt, London Plane Massaria disease, Black Knot of Cherry – and notify park officials.
4) Learn to recognize unwise watering -
Early morning is best – gives plants time
for their leaves to dry (and avoid fungal
infections) – Report afternoon watering.
5) Mowing lawns is not a slam dunk –
When to cut grass, and how short to cut it –
Proper mowing (depends on type of grass)
creates a low maintenance, drought
resistant lawn….
6) Central Park waters (lakes, ponds, rills)
often fill in with “pond scum” each summer.
Learn the biology of “pond scum” – a mix
of duckweed and algae. The best solution
is the installation of water pumps to keep
the water moving, especially over summer.
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The Environment in the Bible:
1) Man has dominion over all things on earth
2) Man is the steward of the Garden:
taking care of it, managing it….
The Environment as we might view it today:
We ARE the environment. We ARE nature.
We are NOT separate from the world around
us. It is especially difficult to see ourselves as
not unlike ecologies we study in the park – but
we are a consortium of bacteria and protists
and fungi, and viruses!, as well as plant pollen,
and much else that we imbibe and inhale.
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The Environment as seen and used by those who came before us – the Coastal Lenape People…..
The Coastal Lenape had a foraging dominant economy…..Even when corn (maize) arrived, it was never a maize based economy. The seashore provided much of their nutrient needs, and greens, berries, and nuts were gathered. To hunt land animals, they used fire to clear the land. Over time, Manhattan Island was burned down over and over – and forests regenerated from buried seeds. It was a successful economy for a couple of thousand years – and ours today?
The Lenape lived mostly out of doors, but for protection from inclement weather and to rest during the night, they built wigwams and long-house shelters. [“Mannahatta” by Eric Sanderson]
The scholar of the Lenape, Herbert Kraft, wrote that, like many people who live close to the land, they ‘saw themselves as an integral park of a natural world filled with an almost infinite variety of plants, animals, insects, clouds and stones, each of which possessed spirits no less important than those of human beings.’ [quoted in “Mannahatta”]
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From Rabbi Burt Jacobson: “The Eclipse of Wonder – Abraham Joshua Heschel and our Ecological Crisis…..
Heschel knew that there was something very wrong with the way human beings were living in the modern world. In 1951, in his book on the Sabbath, he wrote that our war with nature had come to resemble a defeat: “We have fallen victims to the work of our hands; it is as if the forces we had conquered have conquered us.” (The Sabbath, p. 27) Yet he says that Judaism doesn’t teach us to reject civilization, but to surpass it by attaining some degree of independence from it. “The Sabbath is the day on which we learn the art of surpassing civilization.”
In 1955, eight years before Rachel Carson’s book appeared, Heschel wrote the following deeply prophetic words: “As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind. Humankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation.” (God in Search of Man, p. 46) This then would, I believe, be Heschel’s way of understanding what is at the root of the environmental crisis: the eclipse of wonder, awe and appreciation, and its replacement by mindlessness, greed and domination.