THE HURON NATURAL AREA

AN APPLICATION OF THE ECOSYSTEM APPROACH

THE HURON NATURAL AREA WORKING GROUP

ENVIRONMENT AND RESOURCE STUDIES 490

CARL BURGESS, MARK CONRAD, STEVE DIGGON, MARNIE EGGEN, ROBIN GREEN, CLINT JOHNSON, RYAN METCALFE AND IAIN THOMSON

ADVISOR: James J. Kay

Environment and Resource Studies

University of Waterloo

April 6, 1995

VOLUME ONE

ECOSYSTEM THEORY

Following is the Table of Contents of the paper version of the document. The WWW links are to the hypertext version.

Chapter One
THE HURON NATURAL PARK

Chapter Two
The Ecosystem Approach To Monitoring Integrity

2.0 LONG-TERM RESEARCH AND MONITORING 11

2.1 Monitoring Approaches 12

2.2 The Ecosystem Approach 13

• 2.2.1 Defining System Boundaries 14
• 2.2.2 Scale grain and extent 15
• 2.2.3 Hierarchy Theory 17
• 2.2.4 Definition of Stress 18
• 2.2.5 Summary 19

• 2.3.1A Synopsis of the Essentials of an Ecosystem Approach 25

2.5 The Abiotic, Biotic, Cultural, and Energetics Organizing Principle 29

2.6 Summary 32

Chapter Three
APPLICATION OF THE ECOSYSTEM APPROACH TO MONITORING THE INTEGRITY OF THE HURON PARK ENVIRONMENTAL AREA

3.0 SYSTEMS IDENTIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION34

3.1 Description Of The Hierarchy That Huron Park Environmental Area Exists Within 39

• 3.1.1. Great Lakes Basin (Central South Western Ontario): The Wider Environment 39
• 3.1.2 A. Abiotic Description 40
• 3.1.3 B. Biotic Description 40

• 3.2.1 A. Abiotic Description 42
• 3.2.2 B. Biotic Description 43
• 3.2.3 C. Cultural Description 43

• 3.3.1 A. Abiotic Description 44
• 3.3.2 B. Biotic Description 44
• 3.3.3 C. Cultural Description 46
• 3.3.4 E. Energetics Description 47

• 3.4.1 Huron Environmental Area: The Ecosystem49
• 3.4.2 Landscape 51
• 3.4.3 A Abiotic Description 51
• 3.4.4 B Biotic Description 54
• 3.4.5 C Cultural Description 54
• 3.4.6 E Energetics Description 55

• 3.5.1 A. Abiotic Description 56
• 3.5.2 B Biotic Description. 58
• 3.5.3 C. Cultural Description 59
• 3.5.4 E. Energetics Description 59

3.7 Individual 61

3.8 Initial Application To Huron Environmental Area 61

4.0 REFERENCES 63

Appendix One 66

Appendix Two 73

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE 1: Location Of Huron Natural Area 5

FIGURE 2: Framework for the development of . 13

FIGURE 3: Holling's four box figure 8 model 23

FIGURE 4: Conceptual systems diagram 28

FIGURE 5: Grand River in Context 35

FIGURE 6: Strasburg Creek in Context 36

FIGURE 7: Huron Environmental Park 37

FIGURE 8: Perspective Wheel 49

FIGURE 9: Perspective Wheel 49

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 1: Organising Principles and Systems Perspectives . 30

TABLE 2: Great Lakes Basin (Wider Environment) 40

TABLE 3: Grand River Watershed (The Environment) 41

TABLE 4: Strasburg Creek Sub Watershed (The Wider System) 44

TABLE 5: Summary of Vegetation Communities . 48

TABLE 6: Huron Park (The Landscape) 52

TABLE 7: Summary of Landform Characteristics 53

TABLE 8: Huron Park (Communities) 57

TABLE 9: Huron Park (Populations) 60

TABLE 10: Huron Park (Individual) 61