Is there A RAINFOREST in New York?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ต.ค. 2023
- Parts of the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York receive upwards of 55 inches of rainfall annually, qualifying them as potential temperate rainforests.
Today, I put that claim to the test, and try to find some more rainforests in unexpected places!
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Once again, I'd like to give a special thanks to Michael Kudish and David Turan for inviting me to their preserve and showing me around, making this entire video possible!
Sources / Further Reading:
rchn.biologiachile.cl/pdfs/199...
nyskiblog.com/directory/weath...
coolweather.net/staterainfall/...
• The Incredible Appalac...
prism.oregonstate.edu/project...
prism.oregonstate.edu/project...
www.cisa.sc.edu/atlas/carolin...
nyskiblog.com/directory/weath...
i.imgur.com/6lvzmXZ.jpg
books.google.com/books/about/...
www.wvgs.wvnet.edu/www/faq/fa...
climatedataguide.ucar.edu/cli...
www.usgs.gov/media/images/map...
gsmit.org/wp-content/uploads/...
www.usgs.gov/media/images/map...
exhibitions.nysm.nysed.gov/ir...
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He hiked slide mountain alone, so every time you see a shot of him hiking it he had to go back to get the camera afterwards or when he was walking towards the camera go back after putting it down and hike that part of the trail again. He backtracked a ton (which as a hiker is one of my least favorite things to do) for footage for us, that's some dedication.
Les from Survivorman style.
I believe he had an accomplice
I watch a lot of hiking videos and this detail is one that always gives me such huge admiration for people who video document hikes and outdoors stuff! The dedication is incredible!
K so your proving new York could be a beyond beautiful rainforest instead of a shitty concrete wall street?
@dodo6829 new york is a great state with tons of wilderness. My grandparents live in upstate NY and I cisit them pretty often, other than how cold ot is it's a great place. NY is way more than 1 lousy city, altho I have been to NYC once and it seemed cool, I don't get all the hate. Then again I was entirely a tourist which seems to be part of *why* people hate NYC.
Mike is such a sweet old man oh my goodness. I absolutely love how much effort and care he has put into all of his research! Such a great video!
He's truly dedicated his life to the Catskill Forest!
@@AtlasPro1great video but a bit long i rather would like few more 12 or 15 minute videos
No, the longer the better.
I wish he would be my grand father
I would say he is a sweet man, no need to call him old.
Upstate New York is truly a hidden gem of the US. I am so glad I had my exchange year there! I still remember visiting the Adirondack Mountains... what a great time!
Shhhhhhh!
As a New Yorker myself I can say people from the city as well as long islanders underestimate how cool upstate New York is!
Knowing both the Catskills and the Adirondacks, the Catskills have been far more extensively deforested than the Adirondacks. While the peaks of the Catskills were not always deforested they were stripped of their largest and most valuable trees. While the Adirondacks have greatly suffered there remains virgin forest that may indeed support the understory you are looking seeking in a rain forest in New York State.
Almost none of the Adirondacks was unlogged, check pictures from the 1890s, just a few places with virgin timber that are very well known as virgin timber. Many of the peaks of the Adirondacks were "logged" (everything is pretty small up there) to burn because they used smoke signals from the peaks to estimate elevation and triangle a location
@@sagetmaster4It's easy to forget that bc it was so long ago, it's grown back a lot. But the only place I've ever see a tree over 200 yrs old in NY is at my childhood elementary school in suburban CNY.
It has a plaque from 1976 saying it was certified by arborists to having been around for the Revolutionary War.
The school district has adopted oak insignia (mostly unrelated to that specific tree, but rather related to the oak wood lot that once existed there).
Any one of its four or five main leaders dwarf any of the trees shown in this video. It's literally 12' in diameter (DBH).
I live in both and yes, many of the areas have been turned to farmland
i have a cabin in the adirondacks, go most summers. it's barely touched, truly.
@@burtan2000 There's a few old trees here and there, I'd wager a lot are on private land rather than out in the ADK parks nowadays, drive through some of the smaller towns in NNY and you'll pass by some massive trees. I have a red maple in my front yard that is 132in in circumference, which puts it in the 180-200yr range, but the Rev War would be 250 years ago now, and I think most of the trees from before then have definitely been logged, 300yr walnut and maple trees for sure, as those would have been prime lumber targets
As an octogenarian who grew up in the southern Adirondacks, I appreciated your comprehensive survey of the ecology of the Catskills, and find it corresponds well with the environment and geology with which I am familiar. Thanks for yet another excellent presentation.
@UnitTrace In his 80's, yes
Someone needs to digitize and preserve all of Mike's maps and records!
Another comment mentioned this. David is my uncle and I'm about to finish my Computer Science degree, so perhaps I'll end up helping him digitize all Michael's work at some point in the future.
@@datmanydocris awesome. With a free program like qgis you can use coordinate adjustment rubbersheeting methods to match the maps with georeferenced points. This will allow for various forms of digital spatial analysis. Honestly all that has to be done is get high quality (dpi, contrast, lossless) scans of the maps and I am sure someone else will do it. In some cases the data on these map and in his archives might not exist anywhere else.
@@datmanydocrisyou left my favorite reply comment that I can remember finding lol. What a wonderful and lucky coincidence. What a cool bunch you all are, for real. I do hope that you and your Uncle Dave can do this with Mike's maps. They're treasures, really, & your efforts might make a bigger difference than we can imagine.
@@datmanydocrisI go to a small college in upstate ny with a strong GIS program. I could contact some ppl and see what I can do…
Hi from Italy!! I'm a plant physiological ecology student in Rome and your videos always stimulate a lot of critical thinking. It's amazing how you can be very easy to understand for people who aren't familiar with these subjects yet still keeping academic relevance. This video in particular has motivated me to investigate whether here in Italy we could have rainforests, as we do have some places with over 1500mm of precipitation that weren't under ice during the last ice age. I will be looking into this matter for sure. If you ever want to come to Italy for a video like this I'm here to host you! Italy is very fascinating from a biological, biogeographical and geological point of view. It's the most biodiverse country in Europe and we have lots of endemisms since it's a peninsula cut off from the rest of Europe by the Alps.
A rain forests occur in regions where rainfall exceeds about 1,800 to 2,500 mm (about 70 to 100 inches) annually and occurs fairly evenly throughout the year. Unless the "forest" receives this amount of rainfall, it is officially NOT a rain forest.
I would love to know about the endemics of Italy! Was there a period in the geologic past when the peninsula was fully an island? Maybe some time earlier in the Cenozoic?
How is your research going? Would love to know if there are pockets of temperate rainforest in Italy!
As a forestry student, please keep making videos about forest ecosystems. This was one of my favorite videos of yours!
This is my favorite video you've ever done. PLEASE do more like this. Also, Mike seems like the greatest man ever and I wish he was my friend.
This one was a blast to make! I'm glad you enjoyed, hopefully I'll have more like it in the future!
Finding people like Mike when doing fieldwork is like striking the motherlode.
@@AtlasPro1I would love to see you go to West Virginia and also it has inspired me to start doing my research on temperate rainforests closer specifically here in Colorado
This video was great. Please go to WV.
@@AtlasPro1West Virginia sounds interesting but my vote is the Midwest drift less area. It’s breathtaking every day
Great video as usual! Nice to see that Michael Kudish is still hiking the Catskills.
Regarding the boreal forest at the top of the peaks, I agree that it is not a temperate rainforest. However, it might be a boreal rainforest--some researchers have recognized this in the published literature (e.g. DellaSala et al 2011, including Paul Alaback as a coauthor). It is very likely that cool summer temperature is the cause of the boreal islands in New York Mountains, a topic my research group has researched extensively. If summers were warmer it is likely that drought-tolerant temperate tree species would be there. BTW the hanging moss is a lichen (probably an Usnea species)--we have them in boreal forests in Minnesota as well.
I agree that it has the potential for boreal rainforest as well, but once again, the soil retention will keep it limited. I don't doubt boreal rainforest exists elsewhere, but not in the Catskills!
You are probably right since the Catskill mountain peaks are so rocky. However, I would not give up on the possibility of a boreal rainforest in NY, maybe in a high valley in the Adirondacks with enough soil and precipitation to support a productive boreal rainforest. It will be interesting to see if that emerges from the ongoing analysis of the remaining old growth forest--estimated at 250,000 to 500,000 acres in the Adirondacks.
Looks like Spanish Moss, which we have here in the deep south. If thats not it, it must be a close relative. Has all the same features
@@AtlasPro1 Boreal forests might not have a rainforest analog since the species that compose these forests are largely gymnosperms and other pioneer species which have adapted to colonize marginal habitats where larger broad-leafed angiosperms can't compete. Whether as marginal soil specialists or arid adapted plants. The arid climates of the Pangaean interior were after all what we believe largely lead to gymnosperms rise to prominence during the Permian and Triassic in particular and while they largely held on through the early Jurassic by the Cretaceous they had lost their place as the dominant flora.
@@leefrelich4374 The Adirondacks are geologically quite interesting as the only young mountain range on the Eastern side of North America while I don't know if they really have the right conditions for a rainforest as glaciation is still a factor, of course the active uplift may result in higher rates of erosion which could allow pockets of terrain which allow more soil to accumulate so its definitely worth an inquiry as the type of uplift, i.e. a dome being elevated by seep mantle upwelling means the conditions are quite different from say the old roots of a dissected plateau in the Appalachians like the Catskills.
I’ve lived in the Adirondacks for 41 years, it is unlike any place on earth, there are so many secrets and so many mysteries. Great video.
I was in one of Mike’s first dendrology classes when he started teaching at Paul Smith’s College. Definitely one of the classes I most enjoyed. What a pleasure it would be to go out in the field with him again after 50+ years. I have to admit to being a bit jealous.
So interesting to learn about this stuff. Despite not living in the US I am highly amazed and interested in its nature and wonderful biogeography. Love your channel man
The lessons we learn here can be applied everywhere!
I'm an ecology student, and I just learned about the "moss" around 35:40 in class! It's actually a type of fruticose lichen, not a moss. While I'm not very good at lichen ID yet, to me it resembles a Bushy Beard Lichen, the Usnea genus.
Edit: I think it'd be really cool to see you do a video on lichen, and it would fit right in with the other topics you cover! There's a very interesting story in there about air quality over the past 50 years, as lichen are some of the first to go when it drops.
You're right, it's an Usnea sp.
100% and Usnea sp. of some sort
Yep its a lichen.. tho in my neck of the woods its called 'old man's beard'..
I was a bit surprised that anyone actually interested in nature would mistake a lichen for a moss, but I guess we all have our blind spots.
Yeah, definitely an Usnea. But since lichens are colonial organisms of many symbiotic species, I wouldn't dare classify it beyond that point. I'm not that familiar with Usnea's lifestyle, but it wouldn't astonish me if one or more of the fungal organisms of that species has mycelium deep into those tree branches and is drawing water from there. Unlike a lot of the other lichens, I don't see it on the rocks.
Just came home from a night away in the Finger lakes and spent 4 nights in the Adirondacks. Upstate New York is so incredibly beautiful it blows my mind. I could spend the next 10 years just trying to find all the best places to see and explore.
I always find it interesting people speak this way . There are plenty of scapes and similar joys of nature everwhere in the US . But the fingerlakes are definitely original , creating a climate for growing grapes . Other than that NY can fade in my past . Ive had 53 years to find something to rally around . And winetours are about it ;) Dont worry giving advise to leave . I am and hoping others follow I love
Mike is absolutely amazing. He's like Gandalf and the Hobbits all rolled into one person. 😁
I'm sure he would love to hear such kind words. How thoughtful...
Gross
❓ So, because he's essentially Gandalf and the Hobbits rolled up into 1 person, then isnt it likely that ^he alone returned the one ring to Mordor to be destroyed in the lava of Mount Doom? If so, then he must've magically granted himself a patience spell, so as to become capable of tolerating Gollum's incessant annoyingness & constant back-stabbery throughout that quest.... 😁
If you've ever been up to the High peaks in the Adirondacks its basically a rain forest up there, ridiculously lush
As someone who has spent a lot of time in the Northern ADKs i think part of that is the geology. The Catskills are mainly a plateau that has been worn away by streams similar to how the canyons out west were carved, and thus facilitates drainage.
The ADKs are an upthrusting dome which has formed lots of small basins that collect rain water into either ponds/lakes or just minor swamps. And beavers build dams to do nearly the same thing. This traps a lot more water to increase the total water availability.
There is a certain type of ground moss that makes 1in tall stems with leaves sticking out that i only find in places with super spongy/soggy ground.
As far as the understory goes, I'm not sure how much beach slash, young trees, and lower spruce limbs count, but they are certainly at face level and hard to walk through.
Having spent a lot of time in the Adirondacks as well it's very lush but I don't think it's a rainforest. The understory argument isn't very strong in my mind, well developed long standing eastern forests have lots of understory trees and shrubs, serviceberries eastern redbuds and the like
@@sagetmaster4no
no
no
just no
NOOOOO
@@obinator9065 "just no" is not a very strong argument
@@sagetmaster4 There are lots of native understory trees and shrubs as you're saying. A big reason they're not that common is because of the huge deer pressure resulting from the lack of predators like wolves.
This is so freaking cool to watch! What an honour it must be to meet and talk to someone who's dedicated his entire life to studying that specific region.
I was blown away when he spoke about the native american tribes and their settlements
I remember doing a stand analysis study with my field ecology professor Jim Winch while in college on Slide mountain and referencing Kudish's work. We were studying acid rain effects on Red Spruce populations. Our results at that time were alarming. This is a beautiful day hike from base to summit with a gentle to moderate grade. The changeover from deciduous to balsam firs is quite striking and surreal as you approach the summit. The view from the summit is fantastic on a wide open rock platform with views in nearly all directions. It is a great place to watch meteor showers if you can avoid a foggy night. The best time to go is in the fall as the leaves are changing colors at the base and the surrounding area. Bring an extra layer of clothing to put on near the top.
David Turan is my uncle. I have spent tons of time up on Mount Utsayantha and on the preserve. Always love it whenever I can spend time up there. It's such a beautiful place.
Mike is a genuinely great guy and very knowledgeable. Every time you meet him he'll always go into some story telling you something about the area.
Great work in this video and you've gained a new subscriber.
I find something incredibly wholesome seeing the older and more recent generations interested in geography(and all the other terms) uniting together to solve questions like this.
About 4 years ago, I went to Spruce Knob, the highest point in West Virginia. As the name suggests, the peak is covered in conifers. However, you really don’t need to go far down the mountain to get to a deciduous forest, and I did think it felt like a temperate rainforest, although I definitely wasn’t being scientific with that conclusion, so I would love to see you explore the same region!
I was thinking the same about the Hoosier Hills. It's a region between the Ohio River and plains of Central Indiana. It's an extension of the hills stretching from the Appalachians on the other side of Ohio. It used to be thought they were glacial moraine hills, but they're really truly ancient mountains. None of the are more than 900 feet now, but they are still pretty impressive. Even now it's not densely developed, even with sizable cities like Louisville nearby. Very lush, quite a bit of rain and still biodiverse. My family has a cabin there and I've seen the layers of plant life. Growing up, people would jokingly call it the Hoosier National Rainforest. It would be cool to see if it might actually qualify.
This is by far my favorite video you have done thus far! As a forester (from upstate) myself, you really brought to life the concepts and forest ecology interactions that make forests so amazing! Teaching people how to look at species composition and structure and observing how they change and why is what really opened my eyes to forestry! The way you explained something so complicated but in a thoughtful easy to follow manner is a gift! This video made my whole week. Thank you so much for all you do on your channel (best channel on TH-cam by far!) and I cannot wait to see what you do next!
The upstate forests hold a special enchantment, and now I have a deeper understanding for why that is. Also, NICE illustration with the intergrade butterfly hybrid! Thank you for featuring the deep knowledge, enthusiasm and dedication of Mike Kudish and Dave Turan. Great video. Subscribed.
As an Upstate New Yorker who grew up with the Catskills always in the background (and in the currently very wet Adirondacks at the moment), it's easy to think of our geography as kind of boring compared to other places. My grandfather used to take me around the woods behind his house up in the hills near Binghamton to look for frogs and salamanders. The floor of the forest there was a deep layer of moss, even through all that land had been cleared before my family bought it. It's nice to be reminded that there were always interesting things to be found in my own backyard, rainforest or not.
The woods around Binghamton is where I collected fossils for last years field trip!
@@AtlasPro1I knew seeing you travel on 88 that you had to be from the Bingo area.
Greetings from North Syracuse ...
@@jasonrobertsutliff- That’s funny, when I saw the Harpursville sign I knew he was likely driving from Bingo also. I spent lots of time in NYS parks as a kid, some of my favorite memories are family picnics and swimming at Chenango Valley State Park since that was the closest one to us in Endicott.
@@MrCusefan44 Endicott, sweet! Still in that area?
@@jasonrobertsutliff - No, I moved to Harrisburg/Hershey area after college (SUNY ESF, close to you in North Syracuse).
Great, visiting forests in order to study them and discover new connections between factors that influence their formation seems like a dream job to me. Please continue with your work, I can’t wait for your next video.
Will do!
@@AtlasPro1 Excellent ! Your presentations are always informative and so interestingly presented.
Most people: There's a bunch of trees over there.
Atlas Pro and his subscribers: But why are they there? 🤔
This channel is so cool. Thank you for all of your work uncovering the beautiful truths behind our planet, and even beyond.
Please do the West Virginia video! I’ve been in the area you described a lot, and I think there is some potential for pockets of rainforest. Even if you don’t find any true rainforest there are still some very unique areas in that region that could be worth doing a video on. Canaan Valley is probably the best example of a microclimate in eastern North America and it receives much higher precipitation and much lower temps than everywhere around it.
Mount Washington in NH has a part which feels a lot like a rainforest especially if you go up the Ammonoosuc trail. It's tall enough so you go above the clouds, and so the part where clouds hug the mountain is very wet feels completely different from other forests in New England. As you go up you can watch as a more familiar type of forest slowly turns more humid, the plant life changes, and there are cool places where rivers seems to run off of the edge of the earth. Might make for a interesting video topic!
Cutting out you talking and only getting Mikes responses is one of the simplest yet cleanest and professional parts of interviews people forget all the time. Great Job!
This is awesome! So glad I found your channel. I'm presently in Sidney, NY which is in Delaware County but prior to this I lived in an off-grid cabin on the "dark" side of Mohonk Mountain in Ulster County. Given your requirements, I definitely feel as though portions of Mohonk potentially (maybe almost?) qualify as a temperate rainforest. Very exciting!
At 2:21 my brain got triggered at the "practicing skills" and i accidentally fastforwarded 30 seconds expecting a SkillShare ad. TH-cam really got me Pavlov'd, huh.
I honestly don’t have much interest in rainforest and geography, but boy do I love watching people talk and discuss stuff they’re passionate about. Mike was impressive in every way
This was such a fantastic and dynamic experience! I love how the breadcrumb trail leads us astray due to somewhat arbitrary definitions of “rainforest”. Truly a multidisciplinary approach to learning about an area from many perspectives!
Please continue exploring potential areas of rainforest in the more temperate areas of North America!
I'm so glad you made it around to the Monongahela National Forest. At so many points throughout the video when you referenced the Smokies and defining features of a rainforest as having an understory I kept thinking "what's so special about those features, that's just a normal forest" - not realizing my mental model of a "normal forest" was also another very wet area.
This is such an amazing channel! It really brought back the child-like wonder I had for this beautiful planet and I can't wait to learn about and visit the amazing places we have!
truly the power of touching grass, knowing which type it is, how it came there and understanding why it prevails.
My Geography teacher back in middle school started his first lesson with "Geography is the study of EVERYTHING" and went on how we need all the other subjects we had in school to truly understand it. Being 32 now and watching this channel for a few years really made me appreciate the statement much more than my slightly naive and ignorant younger self.
Where my grandma lives in northern Minnesota is beautiful sugar maple forest and has a clear grass/forb, shrub, subcanopy, and canopy layer. The subcanopy is dominated by pagoda dogwood and ironwood. There are also some balsam fir, white spruce, quaking and big tooth aspen, American elm, and in the low spots, white cedar, and black ash. White cedar also act as a subcanopy species. The area only receives 25” of precipitation/year but the clay soil holds water well and the long, frigid winters keep it from drying out. That said you see a few standing dead paper birch and a few large old red oaks indicating it probably burned in the latter half of the 19th century.
Yeah though the presence of fire adapted species likely is due to human influence since there was a strong indigenous presence in the region. Humans are a fire species and we have dramatically shaped ecosystems with fire wherever we have gone which is now looking to be an increasingly important piece of the puzzle to the late Pleistocene extinctions where the mix of fire and climate change had lasting impacts on ecosystems which in the case of southern California seems to have directly caused the loss of megafauna due to rising human population density and our widespread fires getting and growing out of control in the warming drying climate.
The timing of extinctions in Sahul(greater Australia) and the Americas in particular appear to show a fairly strong trend here in large part because these were areas which had no prior exposure to our genus and its fire regime ecology at the time where humans appear to have arrived in each based on more recent archeological dates.
one of the most interesting and isolated temperate rainforests is the karri and karri-tingle forests of southwestern australia, in particular the karri-tingle areas around walpole have many rainforest endemic gondwanan relictual species that are restricted to just the small patches of giant old growth tingle trees on the coastly facing slopes of the few small hills in that area, theres velvet worms, giant pill milipedes, tiny trapdoor spiders, ancient lineages of harvestmen.
the orographic effect aso allows for some small areas of tall karri trees to growth on the slops of the porongurup range, an extremely ancient granite bedrock outcrop (1.5 Billion)
I’m so strangely impressed by Mike’s ability to translate thoughts into speech without any of the mental stumbling we all sometimes encounter, and more prevalently as we age. His mental vigor and clarity seems to reflect an active and enthusiastic mind.
The great love that Mike and Dave hold for this forest is so moving. The fade to black at the end of the panorama views was lovely too. Thank you for making this video and sharing it with us.
Your best video to date! Hands down! Thank you!
The Monongahela Forest in WV was a surprise mention. Definitely, explore that.
But I will say I've been to the Smokies a handful of times and it is some of my favorite places in the world. The most recent visit was just a month ago when I went deeper into the national forest and was immediately overwhelmed by its beauty and it's "differentness" to in the Laurel Mountains of PA of which I'm accustomed too. I had incidentally visited the Smokies in the summer of 2017 after their fires that spring to witness the Great American Solar Eclipse. Fascinating how the peaks and ridges were vulnerable to fire but not the valleys. An exploration of the Smokies with your knowledge, curiosity and open-mindedness would be greatly appreciated!
I was surprised that being a former Paul Smiths prof, he's down in the Catskills. It's a beautiful treat to have such a large, well-preserved area/State Park so close to a major metro. It provides the drinking water to millions.
I'd like to see Tug Hill researched. It's a much larger area of > 55" precipitation. It's an insane snow belt.
It's always funny to see the occasional car with feet of snow on it when you've had zero snow yourself. It's common for there to be no snow in Syracuse and lots of snow up there
we need to get this man everything he needs to do his wonderful treks to all these places. This was an amazing video, and I love how you put everything together to figure out what makes a rainforest.
Definitely looking forward to your next trip to inspecting other potential rainforests. I think what you're doing is going to be improving the sciences greatly.
Glad to se another video! I am incredibly exited for the possibility for you to travel and give a more indepth analasys of the places you educate us about. Hope you have a good weekend!
You're one of the only channels that can actually spur my interest in ecological studies like this, so keep it up man! In making these videos you're bringing more attention to ecology in general and that's a great thing! Can't wait for the next videos on this topic, if they come out.
This was a really fascinating and well-made video. It’s very helpful that you include the different maps throughout the video, but the real fun of this video is in watching you out in nature as you explore. It shows so much more than just stock images can reveal, since we essentially get to see things through your eyes. I hope we get to see more videos like this!
At the 13:20 mark, Mike pulls out a map of the precipitation in the Catskills. For decades I have fished, hunted, and toured around those areas. While hunting, we always joked about those mountains near Denning being part of a rainforest. Thanks for the insight, very informative.
This is the most I feel like I've learned and comprehended since getting out of high school. This was such an informative and eureka filled video. Thank you so much
I suppose given what you've stated that perhaps in a few tens or even hundreds of thousands of years the Catskills can eventually be considered temperate rainforest once enough soil is laid down.
I asked Mike and it’s possible, but the problem is re-glaciation! In the time it would take for the soils to built up adequately, another ice age would begin
@@AtlasPro1 I aso think that topography has a lot to do with water retention, e.g. its hard to imagine to very top of a mountan - even if not that steep - can hold enough water compared to a valley or plateau. So I think we need the valleys to be cold and rainy enough to have a rainforest, not only the mountain top.
Well done! Found an expert, did lots of homework, and explored in person. What a great amount of depth.
Im so happy to see you revisit the topic. Your original video on temperate rainforests was illuminating and i really enjoyed your foray into ur local wilderness. Upstate New York is very underrated, very scenic area (i spent quite a bit of time right across the border in CT), but more importantly it is an exciting new direction for your channel in my humble opinion. This video took this to new heights, you did an excellent job highlighting the geography of the area and giving the people that have spent decades studying it their own voice and personality
It's underrated because it I'd too expensive to do anything in the state for the majority of the country. Being in the top 5 most expensive states to live in will do that.
@@Wicked_Knight Yeah, it’s weird because I feel like it could be an incredible place to live (for the wealthy at least lol) which would maybe give it the recognition it deserves, but I also know that might ruin it
@@Ryan-cb1ei it has already started happening. The closer you get to NYC, the more wealthy people are prevalent. The more wealthy people in an area, the worse the locals who are just getting by can be treated.
This man i'm sure is single handedly getting me through my environmental science degree.
What a kind old guy, his records should be digitized and preserved! Call a local museum!
You did a FANTASTIC job with this video. As someone who wants to travel around the US studying botany in the field, you are seriously lighting a fire in me to go to upstate NY.
Please do a video on the Midwestern oak savannas. It's another type of ecosystem that Americans tend to be surprised that we have here and they are a real treasure to explore for their biodiversity.
As someone living in the Tongass National Forest, the glaciation thing is interesting. Here the soil is similarly thin for much of the same reasons, but the rainfall is so excessive that despite this we still have this incredibly lush temperate rainforest. That said, much of upstate New York also gets much colder than most of Southeast Alaska, which I'm sure hinders the growth of some of the more specialized flora you can see in temperate rainforests too.
So amazing to meet and talk with Dave, Mike, and the reserves and talk about the archives with them, I would be losing my shit seeing all those data sheets I would be glued to those for hrs looking at them, I know to they had such a amazing time showing off as well
I spent a lot of time in this area especially slide mountain and hunter mountain and another part of the Catskills that my family used to have property in. This is a really awesome video and it's great that you made it.
This is your best yet! Fascinating topic, and I love the inclusion of Mike and others to contribute to the effort. 😊
absolutely an amazing video! I've been watching your channel since you had about 5,000 subscribers I think and the way you look at subjects like biology, ecology, geography, and cultural anthropology is very similar to myself, and reminds me why I have such a deep love for the world around us! Can't wait for the next in the field video!
There is something that I think is absolutely beautiful about the handdrawn maps Mike showed you.
The Catskills might not have any rainforest, but I still think they're pretty neat! I hope one day that topsoil can get thicker so this region can once again achieve PEAK BIODIVERSITY
Being from the Hudson Valley I wish more people knew how beautiful most of New York is, and just how much beautiful forest we have.
I love the overall presentation of this video. I like the gradual reveal of the data you've gathered and how each new data contradicts and then supports the previously presented ones. It's like a roller coaster of expectations.
I also appreciate Mike's dedication to his 51 years of data collection and studies.
I love your video! I was grown in similar mountains in Europe and your previous (about Temperate Rainforest) made me think about my area. In opposite to Catskills my mountains were not transformed in glacial period, but they were transformed almost completely by human - only very small pieces of forest on the peaks were left intact. Precipitation is about 1400mm/y around peaks, but might be closer to 1200. Maybe 1000 years ago our forest could be somehow close to temperate rainforest :D Greetings from Poland!
When I was hearing his discussion on native Americans and burning and settlement patterns I couldn’t help but wonder if such analysis could be applied to Europe to search for ancient human settlements, but probably Europe may have been developed too much since then and such places grew to be proper towns and cities.
Catskill mountains aren’t true mountains by the way. The Adirondack’s are, though
So weird for me to think that the local forest fragments/forest parks in and near my city here in Wellington, New Zealand are literally rainforest. I don't really see the forest here as rainforest but it certainly is all over NZ. Albeit with some drier areas
I love how deep you go into these topics and your dedication to using proper sources.
I wish there was a comment system on Nebula, because I love watching there but sometimes I need to come back over to youtube just to comment and like. Especially on your videos! I loved this. Everything about this video showed off your strengths, and I loved the inclusion of the nature preserve team so much! I would love to see another video like this in the future, as it was just so enjoyable. I especially enjoyed your choice to work with Michael Kudish and showcase this man's life's work. It was touching to see him have his spotlight and be able and willing to share all the information and material he had gathered over his time with this place. Thanks so much for the dedication you bring to your channel. There's a reason you're my favorite youtube creator!
I live in the temperate Ozarks region. I feel like, I think I've always naturally understood 'understory' as the 2 to 5 in high "underbrush", i.e Snowberry plants, mayflower, indian rice, ironweed flower, etc., where our midstory is made up entirely of trees that could theoretically be big tall mature trees one day, but will really only ever be that stunted middle story here in NW Arkansas. It's forest grass, then snowberry, then the that stunted middle level before the oaks and pines that consists of various cherries, dogwoods, hickories, etc., then pretty much oak and historically natural pine make up the overstory.
So happy to see yet another video on the topic. Ur an amazing creator
The ancient Mesopotamia city of Ur?
This was fascinating. Thank you so much! And thanks to Mike and his team, their work is beyond impressive, I'd love to meet him!
Ill never forget the first video of yours i watched a couple years ago of where livestock come from and where vegetables and spices come from. Seeing your channel grow into what it is today has veen incredible! Always extremely top notch youtube content! Keep it coming!!
I just have to say that i really admire your dedication and thet sweet old man who helped you. You both are great such rolemodels.
NEW VIDEO!
I really love this channel and a lot of thing it does.
Btw, can you make a video on the Biogeography of plants. I don’t think there’s any particular videos on that before and while I can research it it can get quite difficult. It would be really interesting!
Yes, or biodiversity hotspots
They are very cool
@@Petronas1288 yessss
Phytogeography would mesh nicely. I've always been interested in the Cape Floral Kingdom, it's so small yet so diverse.
This is one of the most well researched video I've seen from you, or almost anyone on TH-cam. Awesome work. Please make more of this format of showing your work and applying science!
Getting your B-rolls? Exploring paces with your own eyes? Putting into test your theories and takes on biology, ecology, geography and biogeography? I LOVE IT! I'm watching this channel for I think a bit over 2 years now and it's amazing to see the journey you have taken over this period! I'm really excited to see what you'll discover in the next year and beyond!
Fun fact about the Catskills: They're built on a geologic formation known as the "Catskill delta," which was a river delta from a river off of the early Appalachian mountains. This region, which was subtropical at the time, just so happened to be home to the very first forests on Earth, back in the Middle Devonian period, which grew on swampy river deltas. So, this forest grows atop the ancient remains of Earth's first forests.
The river that formed the Catskill delta ran out of the Taconics, which were a MAJOR mountain range at the time. It's controversial whether they were 'Appalachian' since there were multiple orogenies - the Taconics are older than the next ridge to the east of them. The area west of the Catskills was a shallow sea in the Devonian. The petrified forest is actually in what I'd call the Helderbergs rather than the Catskills - different geology. The most significant finds of petrified wood were around Gilboa, Blenheim, Conesville, that general part of the Schoharie Valley. A little north of that, and you're deep into the sea of the time. The whole area from Middleburgh to Thacher Park has fossils of coral-reef species. Tons of trilobites, brachiopods, gastropods, crinoids, and of course corals.
What part does average annual snowfall play in your definitions? For example, in your first precipitation map, the spot in the Adirondacks I recognized as an area that receives heavy lake effect snow. How does one convert inches of snowfall to inches of rain? What impact will that have temperate v boreal forest?
The Tug Hill Plateau probably gets more snowfall than anywhere else in NY.
I would love to see more things like this! It's so informative and engaging, nature works in so many odd and fascinating ways
Great video! I really enjoy these kinds of projects and appreciate the work you put in. The length is really not an issue with me, so keep on doing them. :)
This is EXACTLY the type of video i adore
I look forward to the possibility of you covering arctic rainforests!
(and/or why they today no longer exist.. or?)
Watching this after getting home from my job in stamford was such a trip! Great work, I’m so glad someone is taking about these great mountain ranges!!
This man reminds me of my grandfather who recently passed at 93. He was an engineer at Exxon so not quite the same subject lol but the attention to detail these people had back in the day was incredible
Can you make video on terms Micronesia Polynesia, Melanesia
Austronesia, and how they are all different culture, and people???🙏❤❤
I hope it may get included in your projects.
I love this channel. Especially extraterrestrial part.❤
And also pattern of human migration including Neanderthals , erectus, Denisovan, australopithecus etc. And more specifically Homo Sapiens ❤........ Please.... Please......
And also about Kalash People..... They are unique.... In Y chromosome...
I'd love to see a continuation of this in WV. And, being a Pacific NW girl myself, I'd be interested in what potential temperate rainforests we might have on this side of the continent, maybe with a further continuation...
This is hands down the best geography channel on TH-cam. What a brilliantly assembled, engaging, and super satisfying video. Thank you for sharing your passion with the world, Caelan!
This was an amazing video! I think more discussion between you and the researchers would be nice to hear. I love the theorizing the exploring, all the visuals you added and the maps. Excellent!
Did you see any old chestnut stumps? Do a video on The American Chestnut! There's even some still alive on an island in Michigan! Also those random berries on the trail was an invasive Japanese bar berry.
I actually visited 2 live chestnut trees on the preserve!
5:40 it’s not about temperature and rainfall being related. It’s about the fact that he’s defining a “temperate rainforest” so any hotter and it becomes a tropical rainforest lol
This was my favorite video of yours that you've made. Excellent work and Mike was so entertaining and informative.
The field element elevates your content so much!! I’m a Freshman at the University of Vermont, which is just within accessible range of the Adirondacks and Catskills, and this video very succinctly summarizes all the questions and theories I’ve been collecting recently. You’ve some how meshed my Environmental Studies, History if the Wild and Geology class perfectly together into a very digestible video. This was amazing and so inspiring to see from the humbles beginnings of just another video idea. Thanks as always for the care and effort you put into these!
Love this video!!! One of the criteria for temperate rainforests is very problematic it seems. If absence of fire adapted species is an indicator of rainforest ecosystem, then the coast redwoods of California would no longer be a rainforest because of the presence of fire and fire adapted species
You should check out the temperate rainforests of Yakushima japan. its interesting because its on the same latitude as Jerusalem and is surrounded by the subtropical islands of Okinawa!
We've been having incredible rainfall on the island of Key Largo, FL for the last few years. When I moved here in 2010, our tropical hardwood hammocks did not have very many understory trees even though we have plenty of species that are happy to grow at the right height. The forest floor was clear with a thin layer of soil and some sticks. Dry spells were frequent, especially in the "winter" months. Now there is an incredible tangle of dead wood, bushes and smaller tree trunks that is very difficult to hike through. This is in spite of there being very low light making it to the ground. We're dealing with an explosion of invasive reptiles which mostly sucks for our native reptiles. The substrate is thick and spongy, often concealing holes that are unpleasant to step into by accident.
What a great resource you had in Mike! He seemed so excited to be able to share all that with you! I found this video to be very interesting! I'm going to share it to some of my homeschool friends.
I would say good indicator species for you in this instance may have been Paw Paw(Asimina triloba), which is a midstory tree native to the area, only sharing relatives with species found in China/SE Asia. Paw Paws also are not fire adapted, and require deep moist soil for their large taproot. Everything about this plant and its fruit says "forest with lots of rain" to me.
Another indicator species may be Prunus serotina, but they are more prevalent and difficult to ID species on.
Also another thought, the collection of tree species you have today on the east coast lack the supercanopy, to suppress the upper canopy, the American Chestnut (Castanea dentata) is functionally extinct, no longer ever reaching full size of the "Sequoias of the East". In my opinion this would potentially make it harder for the midstory to get some sun from under the thick overstory, with no competition.
Not to mention the greater variety of all sizes of animals that paw paws and chestnuts could support, by increasing forage.
Additionally, while i am a firm believer that the last glacial maximum is one of, if not the most impactful weather related climate condition in the US. I would harbor a guess that there was more soil, and detritus on the ground in pre-colonial times. Potentially having been severely degraded due to sudden erosion from clear cutting 100-300 yrs ago, and collection of dead wood for fires by early settlers. So just saying there is not enough soil really doesn't capture the whole picture. Especially considering the pre-colonial range of American chestnuts, and their habit to prefer steeper than average slopes.
Yeah great points which mirror my own though I hadn't mentioned the American Chestnut which feels like a damn shame as it really has strong parallels with emergent layer trees like the Brazil nut in quite a few ways.
Given that we now have the technology to restore the true American Chestnut today due to early work in genetic engineering now only held back by political reasons this is likely a very important point to recognize.
And yeah deforestation is/was quite extensive throughout the areas colonized by Europeans due to their insatiable apatite for wood. Even today there is extensive soil destruction due to human development which is effectively destroying thousands of years of soil which is becoming primarily run off.
These are some interesting thoughts, but there are some issues. Pawpaw is not native to the catskill region (only native to a limited portion of the Great Lakes plain in NY) and would not make a good indicator in this case. It's also not especially prevalent in temperate rainforests of the southeast, where it is native.
Prunus serotina is ubiquitous in a wide range of eastern forest types and other habitats, and is actually favored by fire in many of them.
American Chestnut developed large trunks but was not an especially tall tree, with all evidence and pre-blight descriptions indicating similar physiology and role in the canopy to its relatives northern red oak and american beech. Some things about american chestnut have become larger in life in the last 50 years as organizations working on restoration efforts have written things to promote their work. Species like Tuliptree, white pines, and in the right circumstances hickories and sycamore function as emergent/supercanopy trees in eastern forests, especially further south. In upper elevations of the catskills emergent species would be pretty limited to white ash and white pine, but these may not be present if it's an old forest with a low frequency of major weather disturbances.
@@orcrist3 thanks!
Like, immediately
a) This was an amazing video, one of your best yet. I really appreciate the growth in your scientific approach & filmmaking skills + the opportunity to work with *THE* experts in that region's natural history.
b) Man these ecology guys really put it in perspective for me sometimes. My background's in molecular biology, so I'm used to being an expert in one very specific set of interactions & protein family, and even though that's still a systems level approach... the scale is so vastly different. You learn everything you can about something, but it's so different from mapping a series of protein-protein interactions and signaling pathways and all the different processes they affect versus the insanely complex interplay btwn the geology, geography, biology, and evolutionary histories of an entire region.
I've driven some of the back roads in the Catskills, there are some stretches of roads that are nothing but ferns and coniferous trees. Those roads were some of my favorites to drive down.
Love the idea of you exploring areas and presenting your findings.
Btw, the volume of the audio appears to be quite low, lower than in your other videos