E-Notes March 2022
You're going to see a couple of changes in our newsletter, starting with this issue. Thanks to Wayne's ingenuity, we now know how to create a table of contents with hyperlinks. We think you're going to find this helpful. Also, our newsletter now includes ads from organizations you may recognize from Footnotes days.
Contents
TBTC Sponsorship Program
TBTC Annual General Meeting
Bruce Trail Conservancy Receives ‘Survivor’ American Elm Tree
Call for 2022 Volunteers Award Nominations
If You Can't See the Forest for the Trees Biodiversity Hike
Happy March, everyone!
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Re-launching our TBTC sponsor program
In this month's issue, you will see a new addition - sponsored ads. You will recall that Footnotes, the print forerunner of E-Notes, regularly featured ads from approved organizations that provided information of interest to our club members. During our transition to an electronic news format those ads were paused.
In today's E-Notes (and on our website) you will see advertisements from some of our past sponsors: Loops and Lattes hike guidebooks, Blaq Bear hikes and tours, ON, and Brown Rabbit Cabins in NFLD. We thank them for their support which helps the Club to conserve and preserve our beloved Bruce Trail. Board member Orest Nahacziwec created a digital strategy for sponsor ads and long-time volunteer Jude Keast has been managing our sponsor relationships. The Club will be selective in its choice of sponsors to ensure there is a balance of useful information to members. It will also limit the number of sponsors in your E-Notes to maintain a visually pleasing reading experience.
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- sponsored content -
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TBTC Annual General Meeting 2022
Please hold the date for the TBTC Annual General Meeting on Sunday April 10, 2022 (note correction to last month's notice - the meeting is in fact on Sunday).
The event will once again be held on Zoom. We had hoped to gather in person at the Kortright Centre for Conservation. Unfortunately, the pandemic is still here and guidelines for gatherings and venues remain unpredictable. This makes planning indoor events very challenging, and as a result, we will be virtual for another year. It is my hope that we will be able to gather in person in 2023.
Our guest speaker will be Skid Crease , an internationally respected educator, author, political commentator, newspaper columnist, storyteller, keynote speaker, workshop leader, and chair for global, environmental and outdoor education conferences. He will be providing an informative talk on environmental literacy.
We are looking forward to a great AGM. Click here for Skid Creases's biography. To register click here.
Special Events Coordinator, Juliet Williams
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Call for 2022 Volunteers Award Nominations
We remind you that the Toronto Bruce Trail Club is inviting nominations for outstanding TBTC volunteers for the Nina Carlisle Award and the Todd Bardes Award.
Nominations close on March 15, 2022.
For details on the awards, the nomination process and past recipients, please go to Volunteer Awards.
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Bruce Trail Conservancy Receives ‘Survivor’ American Elm Tree
 Historically in North America, American (or white) elm trees grew majestically along many of the streets of its cities and towns, up until the introduction of Dutch elm disease (DED) in the 1930s which ravaged and decimated over 95% of the population of this species. In recent years, researchers at the University of Guelph have discovered a mature, uninfected American elm tree on their campus, seemingly resistant to the fungal infection. With the goal to conserve the species from complete extinction, cloning the ‘survivor’ tree has become an important focus for researchers at the University of Guelph.
 The American elm tree, Ulmus americana, is a deciduous tree native to North America, with a characteristic umbrella-shaped canopy and alternate and doubly-serrated leaves. DED, believed to originate from Asia and accidentally introduced to North America and Europe, is caused by a fungus from the Ascomycota family (scientific name Ophiostoma ulmi) and is spread by three species of bark beetles. Bark beetles enter and dig galleries underneath the bark, allowing the fungus to spread. DED affects elm trees through the sap-conducting tissues (phloem), cutting off the supply of sap to the tree and causing vascular wilt, most noticeable by the loss of green foliage in the canopy of trees (Natural Resources Canada, 2015). Though fungicide treatments have been developed, they can be costly and require repeated application that may only increase a tree’s lifespan by 5-10 years thus selection programs, such as at the University of Guelph, are important for distributing resistant trees (Tree Canada, n.d.).
Dr. Philip Gosling, one of the founding members of the Bruce Trail Conservancy (BTC) and an avid naturalist, and his wife, Susan Gosling, created the Gosling Research Institute for Plant Preservation (GRIPP) in 2012 with an emphasis on protecting and preserving American elm trees. Researchers developed a reliable plant cloning technique to clone 900 American elm trees using the ‘survivor’ tree. One of the scientists working on this project also mentioned that it may serve as a model to propagate other endangered plant species around the world (University of Guelph, 2012). To date, 100 trees have been donated to the BTC, most of which have been planted up in the Bruce Peninsula area.
On November 4th, 2021, the Biodiversity Team at BTC planted 10 of those cloned American elm trees on BTC property. The conservation of this endangered species is an important endeavor to maintain the biodiversity of flora and fauna in Ontario. American elm trees also produce fruit and flowers that are used as a food source by many bird species and squirrels as well as habitat for songbirds to nest, such as Baltimore orioles.
For more information on research by GRIPP, check out their website: https://gripp.ca/
by Shan Shukla, Vanessa Nhan, Monique Dosanjh (Recent Graduates from the Master of Forest Conservation program at the University of Toronto
References
- Natural Resources Canada. Dutch elm disease. (2015, August 4). Retrieved November 18, 2021, from https://tidcf.nrcan.gc.ca/en/diseases/factsheet/10.
- Tree Canada. Tree Killers: Dutch Elm Disease. (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2021, from https://treecanada.ca/resources/tree-killers/dutch-elm-disease/.
- University of Guelph. U of G Scientists Clone ‘Survivor’ American Elm Trees. (2012, March 29). Retrieved November 21, 2021, from https://www.uoguelph.ca/news/2012/03/u_of_g_scientis_8.html.
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- sponsored content -
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If you can't see the forest for the trees: Biodiversity Hike on March 6th.
Can you identify which of Ontario's native trees these are from the photos of their twigs, buds, and bark in winter? With the help of our Biodiversity Team's guides on our hike on March 6th you will learn this is not as challenging as you first thought.
 Join our forestry resource people as they teach us about trees and how to enhance forest health and to promote natural regeneration of native trees. Register for our hike in Halton's Speyside Resource Management Area at https://hikes.brucetrail.org/ .
The Bruce Trail Conservancy (BTC) protects and stewards thousands of acres of land on the Niagara Escarpment as part of its mission to establish a conservation corridor along the Niagara Escarpment. Roughly 75% of that protected land is forest habitat. This one of the last remaining continuous bands of forest in southern Ontario. Nearly 100 tree species can be found here.
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