Introduction:
During our research for the Field Guide, which was necessarily broad in nature, we identified three habitats of potentially high biodiversity value that are at risk of being unwittingly destroyed, because they are difficult to distinguish from similar, more common habitats in our region. These at-risk habitats are ancient forests, dry meadows, and wet meadows. To build upon the Field Guide, we have begun an initiative of projects and studies to dig deeper into these habitats. To learn more about this initiative and its goals click here.
The following briefly describes what ancient forests are, why we consider them worthy of more attention, what actions we hope to take to better document and raise awareness about them, and our latest update on the work.
What are Ancient Forests and why do they need to be conserved?
A forest is considered “ancient” if it has never been entirely opened for agriculture, based on evidence from historical aerial photos, LIDAR scans, and “ground-truthing.” They may have been at least partially logged and/or served as forest pasture, so most of our regional ancient forests are not “old-growth,” but, like old-growth, they have been continuously forested since the return of trees after the last glaciation (11,000 years ago).
Agricultural conversion can dramatically alter soils and destroy slow-to-disperse plant populations. Studies (including our own research) have shown that ancient forests can harbor species that are absent from the secondary forests which have regrown on former farmland within the last 80-120 years. This “post-agricultural” forest makes up most of our county’s forest, especially on the flatland.
Unfortunately, most people do not distinguish between ancient and secondary regrowth, and thus development activities rarely differentiate between these two forest types. Ancient forests are often located on relatively inaccessible terrain, such as hilltops/ridges. New building technology means such areas are now increasingly targeted for residential development. Once a parcel is developed, its ancient forest has been destroyed and the ecology of adjacent ancient forest stands may be at greater risk due to fragmentation and edge effects. Once ancient forests are destroyed, they are–by definition–gone forever.
What are we doing to learn more and conserve them?
- Mapping potential ancient forest remnants county-wide, we will learn how much/little of this habitat is left, where it is located, and what the size of these remnants is.
- Conducting more field research, we hope to document additional differences between ancient forest remnants and neighboring post-agricultural forests. In our field study so far, we are focusing on spring wildflowers, which we have not yet properly documented, because of the timing of our previous botanical surveys; ants, which often have a close relationship with spring wildflowers; mushrooms and soil invertebrates, which we formerly did not have the taxonomic expertise in our team to document.
- Sharing and educating the general public about the value of these unique forests through guided walks, presentations, online resources, and printed materials.
Map of Potential Ancient Forests
This fall, we are finally ready to share our “Map of Potential Ancient Forest Remnants” of Columbia County. Linked here is a description of how this map was made and a GIS shape file is available upon request (email fep@hawthornevalleyfarm.org).
How to Support this Work
We are grateful to have secured funding to create a publically accessible map of potential ancient forest remnants in Columbia County, that will serve as a tool to protect these special forests. We have also received some funding for our 2025 field study but are still looking for support to continue this research into the future and also be able to share this information through outreach programming with town boards, CACs, and the residents of Columbia County. Please consider contributing to this work by donating.
2024 Field Study
In 2024, we conducted a pilot study in five pairs of ancient and post-ag forests on the same soil types (ten total sites) and sampled for organisms that were not fully represented in the Field Guide research: spring wildflowers, macrofungi (mushrooms!), ants and other soil invertebrates. For this first season, we focused on the ancient Northern Hardwood habitat, described in the Field Guide as one of our rarer forest types which has deep, rich soils and is mostly found in the northeastern part of the county (New Lebanon, Canaan, and Austerlitz). We compared this habitat to Young Hardwood Forests on the same soil types.
In the spring, Josie documented spring wildflower frequency and abundance and through the rest of the summer, conducted mushroom surveys once a month (here’s a blogpost about some finds). Kyle surveyed for ant nests while also gathering information on forest structure and microtopography. And in the fall, Laura surveyed invasive plants and earthworms (which may be impacted by land use history) and collected soil samples to identify soil invertebrates that are helpful indicators of soil health and disturbance.
Ancient Forest Presentation & Recording
In March of this year, Josie, Kyle, and Laura gave a presentation introducing the Ancient Forest Project, sharing a sneak peak of the Potential Ancient Forest Map, and describing preliminary results of the 2024 pilot study. Visit this link to watch the recording and access a PDF of the slides.
https://hvfarmscape.org/ancient-forest-project-presentation-recording/
2025 Field Study
This year, we visited five more pairs of post-ag and ancient forest located in the southern foothills of the Taconics, in the towns of Gallatin, Ancram, and Taghkanic to focus on oak-dominated forests. We continued with the same methodology and focal groups but added more detailed surveys of the tree communities and vegetation structure.
Stay tuned an update on the field study results from 2025.