Bird Studies Canada’s Aquatic Surveys Volunteer and Data Coordinator will introduce the Marsh Monitoring Program. Kathy will talk about the amphibians and birds surveyed, species-habitat associations, program results, how the data are used, and the health of Great Lakes basin marshes. She will discuss recent results, ongoing initiatives, and explain opportunities available for participation in our area.

Peter Kelly, an ecologist at the University of Guelph and author of the book The Last Stand: A Journey Through the Ancient Cliff-face Forest of the Niagara Escarpment, will speak about how the most ancient and least-disturbed forest ecosystem in eastern North America clings to the vertical cliffs of the Niagara Escarpment. Prior to 1988 it had escaped detection even though the entire forest was in plain view and was being visited by thousands of people every year. No one had discovered it because these Eastern White Cedar trees were relatively small and clung to the escarpment’s sheer rock faces.

Polar Bear by Sue Southon

Winter poses an energetic threat for endothermic (“warm-blooded”) animals: to stay warm, animals must have high rates of metabolism, but food, required to power this metabolism, is usually in short supply. Some small mammals hibernate to survive. By allowing their body temperatures to fall close to freezing, hibernators maintain low metabolic rates and can survive on body fat stores until spring.
In this talk, Dr Jim Staples, Associate Professor, Department of Biology, UWO, will introduce you to some of the local hibernators and contrast them with “cold-blooded” locals.

The sedimentary rocks exposed in the Arkona area of Southwestern Ontario host some of the best-preserved invertebrate fossils of the Devonian Period in North America. Take a trip back in time with Dr Cameron Tsujita, Palaeontologist, Department of Earth Sciences at UWO, to some 375 million years ago when Southwestern Ontario was covered by a shallow tropical sea and teemed with alien-looking creatures. Learn how life habits of ancient organisms and aspects of the environments in which they lived may be deduced from the fossils of Arkona.

The AGM (Annual General Meeting) will begin after a short break following the talk. The 2008/2009 Annual Report and minutes of the 2009 AGM will be available to be downloaded on the home page.

Vernal pools are small wetlands that form in the spring and dry up by late summer or early autumn. These wet-dry cycles of vernal pools create a unique habitat type that supports only those species that can tolerate the variable hydrologic conditions. Scott Sampson, president of the Ontario Vernal Pool Association, will explain why conservation of vernal pools is critical to the protection of some species at risk and Ontario's biodiversity.

Friday, April 16, 2010, 7:30 pm
MEMBERS’ NIGHT
You!
Civic Garden Complex

Our members share their adventures and pictures in an informal evening meeting. Members' night always proves to be interesting and informative and is sometimes full of surprises.

If you want to be on the program, please contact Karen Auzins by April 9 to reserve your spot.