Part 1 is at    • Tom Wessels: Reading the Forested Lan...  

Tom Wessels is a terrestrial ecologist and Antioch University New England professor emeritus. He has authored a number of books. If you've read "Reading the Forested Landscape" and "Forest Forensics", you know how skilled he is at interpreting the past land use history clues abounding in central New England's changing forests. Learning to apply the knowledge you gained from those books can be time consuming, however, and you probably find yourself returning to the books often.

In this 3-part series, you'll go into the woods with Tom as he covers many of the topics in detail, providing another opportunity for you to enhance your own "forest forensics" skills.

Some of the topics covered in the three parts: New England's stone walls; pillows and cradles; merino sheep craze ("sheep fever"); forests arising on abandoned agricultural land (past hay field vs crop field vs pasture); signs of past wind, logging and fire damage; reading tree stumps; white pine weevils and multi-trunked pines .

Here in Part 2, Tom teaches us how to understand past logging evidence; he discusses the American chestnut blight; and reveals what a rotting old tree stump can tell us.

Part 1 is at    • Tom Wessels: Reading the Forested Lan...  
Part 3 is at    • Tom Wessels: Reading the Forested Lan...  

Also, see this story and others at our blog, www.neforests.com

And be sure to watch "The Ecology of Coevolved Species", featuring Tom, at
   • Tom Wessels: The Ecology of Coevolved...  

=======================================================================
A note to users of closed-captions: the captions (subtitles) can be moved to different locations on the screen if they are blocking your view. To move a closed caption, place your cursor on it and drag it. Also, when captions are turned on, there are a number of caption features you can change by clicking on the settings "gear wheel" and selecting "Subtitles/CC", and then "Options".