HISTORICAL-ECOLOGICAL STUDIES OF REDDING, CONNECTICUT
PALEOECOLOGICAL STUDIES OF UMPAWAUG POND
David Foster
Highstead, Redding CT
Harvard Forest, Petersham MA
June 15, 2006
Detailed ecological studies of the physical, biological and cultural
landscape of a region are necessary background for long-term planning,
conservation, management and a general appreciation of the natural history of
a region. An essential part of this ecological information is the development
of a solid understanding of a region’s history including long-term changes in
climate, geological processes, human activities, and the array of plants,
animals and other organisms that have occupied the area over time.
Researchers at Highstead and Harvard University’s Harvard Forest are
collaborating and joining with town historians, archaeologists, boards,
conservationists and naturalists to conduct a series of ecological, historical,
and conservation studies in Redding and western Connecticut. For Highstead,
these studies serve to better understand the local and regional setting for its
activities while advancing partnerships with numerous organizations in the
town and region. Meanwhile, the Harvard Forest has been conducting
research across New England for nearly a century and the new studies in
Redding help to extend this work in a region that has received remarkably
little ecological attention.
Paleoecological studies in Redding are based on the sediments of
ponds and lakes (mud) and swamps and other wetlands (peat and muck) that
have accumulated over many hundreds to thousands of years. The physical
characteristics and plant and animal fossils in these sediments are identified to
interpret the history of the environment, vegetation, natural disturbance
processes such as fire, and human activities, including those of native people
and colonial to modern residents. To-date, the studies are focused on two
sites: the swamp at Highstead where more than 3 meters of sediments underlie
a forest of red maple, yellow birch, ash, and black gum, and Umpawaug Pond
in western Redding, which is described below (see Figure 1).
At the two sites different questions are being addressed for different
time periods For the relatively recent history (last 500-1000 years) questions
include:
•
What was the vegetation of the region before European settlement and
did it exhibit much change as the result of natural processes such as
the coll climate through the Little Ice Age?
•
•
•
•
Is there evidence for Native American activity in the region, including
fire or the presence of specific plants associated with native use?
[Note: there are very few sites yielding such evidence, though the
majority are located in southern New England and associated with
water, wetlands and suitable encampment sites, features all found at
Umpawaug).
What impacts occurred on the land and vegetation as a consequence of
European arrival and periods of extensive land clearance, agriculture,
and regrowth of forests with agricultural decline? Broadly, how much
has our forest vegetation changed over the past few centuries?
What information is yielded to add to the known history of the town
and region, e.g., construction of the road, railroad, and houses adjacent
Umpawaug, or the extensive farming and harvesting of forests around
the Highstead swamp?
How have the specific water bodies and wetlands changed as a
consequence of natural processes and human activity?
The record at Umpawaug at least should extend back through most of
the post-glacial period (last 12-15,000 years), which affords an opportunity to
address additional questions:
•
•
What is the long-term history of climate change since glaciation and
how has this shaped the region’s vegetation and environment and the
characteristics of the pond?
What has been the long-term history of the common tree species that
dominate the region today (e.g., oaks, maples, ash, tulip, birches) or
that have declined historically and recently (e.g., chestnut, hemlock,
and beech)?
The information developed from these studies should be of interest and
use to many groups beyond naturalists and ecologists. For conservationists
and individuals interested in the long-term planning of Redding the results
should provide a context for interpreting the range of impacts that humans
versus the environment have had on the land over time and the rates at which
the environment and landscape have and are changing. For historians and
archaeologists the studies will yield additional useful insights into the
physical, biological, and cultural environment and may help to address
looming questions concerning specific periods of time and particular people.
The results will also become an additional part of the story of Redding, which
can engage a range of citizens, students, and classrooms. The data will also
yield some information on changes in water quality and the ecological status
of the pond and wetland over time. All of the sediments from these sites will
be archived and so further analyses regarding these and other issues could be
pursued in the future.
Umpawaug Pond
Umpawaug was chosen for study following discussions with Town
Historian Charley Couch and examination of a number of sites in town. Most
ponds and lakes in town are artificial, i.e., dammed and created in the colonial
period or more recently for water power or recreation and aesthetics.
Umpawaug, however, is a natural water body. It shows up consistently on all
historical maps, is described by early residents such as Nathan Gold (C.
Couch, pers. comm.) and exhibits no obvious evidence of modification
beyond that of the road and railroad. Thus it was believed to have a
continuous sediment record going back many thousands of years.
Umpawaug’s size (<10 acres) matches that of the other 30+ ponds that the
Harvard Forest group has studied and should yield a good record of townwide and regional vegetation.
Figure 1. The two coring sites in the town of Redding, CT. The Swamp
site is located on Highstead property west of Lonetown Road, whereas
Umpawaug Pond is bordered to the west by Simpaug Turnpike and the railroad.
The presence of the railroad at Umpawaug has both benefits and
drawbacks. One benefit is that construction of the railroad should show up as
a discrete event noted through changes in erosion and sediment characteristics
and thus should provide a useful time marker for interpreting the record. (We
have a nice record from Walden Pond in which the construction of H. D.
Thoreau’s nemesis, the Fitchburg Railroad, yields a very distinct impact).
Also, understanding the impacts of railroad construction and subsequent fires
set by the locomotives in this area is of interest as an important part of town
history. One potential downside that we worried about was that railroad
construction might have included blasting or extensive debris that damaged
the sediments. (This worry turned out unfounded).
Field Studies and Initial Observations
On June 14, 2006 a group including Dr. Wyatt Oswald
(Paleoecologist), Elaine Doughty (Lab Technician), Alex Ireland (Summer
Undergraduate Intern), and David Foster cored the pond. Development of a
crude bathymetric map of the water depth was accomplished by traversing the
pond in five E-W lines taking depth measurements every 5-10 meters. The
pond is quite regular in bathymetry, sloping gradually from all shores to a
broad and relatively flat bottom that ranges from 4.7 to approximately 5
meters in depth. The deepest location is about 25 meters north of the south
end where a maximum depth of 5.2 m (17.2 feet) was recorded.
Using a pontoon boat assembled from two canoes and a sheet of
plywood, the pond was cored at a central location approximately 40 m north
of the south end. Water depth was 4.94 m. Sediments were extracted using a
plastic 10 cm diameter tube 2 m in length for the loose surface materials and a
stainless steel “Livingstone corer” for the firmer deeper sediments. A total of
11.7 (38.6 feet) meters of sediment were recovered, which was more than
anticipated. Taking into account the modern water depth and the sediment
depth this indicates that the original pond basin was more than 17 m or 56 feet
deep. It should be noted that coring did not extend to the very bottom as the
sediments became quite firm and we were concerned about extracting the
corer. Therefore the total sediment depth is underestimated.
Future Analyses
In the paleoecology laboratory at the Harvard Forest the sediments will
be sampled and analyzed for organic content (which yields information on
erosion and lake productivity) and charcoal (fire history) and processed to
yield samples for pollen analysis, which yields a record of vegetation. A
number of samples will be sent to a National of Science Foundation supported
laboratory for radiocarbon dating in order to develop a chronology for this
lengthy record. Pollen and charcoal analyses require microscopy and will be
conducted at the Harvard Forest and the Limnological Research Center of the
University of Minnesota by a colleague and long-term consultant of the
Harvard group.
Results will be forthcoming over the next year as each step in this
process is exceedingly time consuming (e.g., pollen samples require 2 days of
preparation and each level requires 3-6 hours of microscope work). The
organic content record (loss on ignition) will be finished in the next month,
but charcoal and especially pollen analyses will be ongoing for some time.
Data Availability
All notes, photographs, data, reports, publications, pollen preparations
and remaining sediments will be permanently archived at the Harvard Forest.
Over the long term all data will be available for public use through the
Harvard Forest web site and information management system. All reports,
data and analyses from this and other studies in Redding will also be archived
at Highstead. Highstead and the Harvard Forest have a policy of making all
information available to the organizations that own the land on which the
research is conducted (e.g., Redding Land Trust, The Nature Conservancy,
Town of Redding) and for the use of town boards and officials.
Relevant References
Harvard Forest Web Site - http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu
Foster, D. R. 2002. Insights from historical geography to ecology and
conservation: lessons from the New England landscape. Journal of
Biogeography 29: 1269-1275.
Foster, D. R. and J. D. Aber. (Eds) 2004. Forests in Time: The Environmental
Consequences of 1000 Years of Change in New England . Yale University
Press, New Haven, CT.
Foster, D. R. 2006. The importance of land use history to conservation
biology. In M. J. Groom, G. K. Meffe, and C. R. Carroll (Eds.), Principles of
Conservation Biology. Sinauer, Sunderland, MA.
Foster, D., D. Kittredge, B. Donahue, G. Motzkin, D. Orwig, A. Ellison, B.
Hall, B. Colburn, and A. D’Amato. 2006. Wildlands and Woodlands. A
Vision for the Forests of Massachusetts. Harvard Forest, Harvard University.
Petersham, MA.