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Boreal Bog

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The boreal bog is a unique community, a quaking plane of sphagnum moss literally floating on an expanse of water. The entrance to the bog is through an ever-thickening tangle of black spruce, moss and lichens. The tight confines of the black spruce bordering the bog finally give way to the bog proper, a rolling expanse of dwarf spruces, short bushes and reindeer lichen on a soft, floating carpet of sphagnum moss. Insectivorous plants, including pitcher plants and sundews, have evolved here in response to the lack of nitrogen in the soil (they get their nitrogen from the insects they trap and digest). Our goal at this site was to characterize the abiotic factors and species of this unique community and to calculate the species diversity index for a selected quadrat. Further, we wished to examine the interior and edge of the bog (an area of slightly higher elevation near the surrounding spruce forest) for differences in species make-up and diversity. We used very small (0.5 m X 0.5 m) quadrats at our two sites because every square inch of the bog surface was packed with life.

Click on a photo below to enlarge.

Boreal Bog 2000