"The Ecological Pine Barrens of New Jersey"

pinelandpaddler

pinelandpaddler

Piney
Apr 6, 2004
3,620
564
Galloway
Howard Boyd is quite a guy. I can't wait to read his new book.

The book describes ecosystem and habitat types across the region, the geologic processes that laid the Pine Barrens' sandy floor and water-saturated underground aquifer, and human impacts from pre-Colonial times to the present. There's detailed explanations for the Pine Plains, the dwarf pine forest on the southern Ocean-Burlington county boundary, and the "fire ecology" that defines the region.

"What I try to do in the book is present the abiotic and the biotic factors about the Pine Barrens," Boyd says. That first set of characteristics starts around 14,000 years ago with the withdrawal of the last Ice Age glacier from northern New Jersey, and the slow warming of what had been a windblown, subarctic desert to the south.
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Bobbleton

Bobbleton

Explorer
Mar 12, 2004
466
46
NJ
I'd say this book is worth reading. It seems pretty big on citing random facts and statistics about the barrens, and does a decent job tying together a number of ecological principles and events that shaped the area.

If you're just generally interested in how the pines work ecologically its a good read, but if you're already pretty well versed on the subject, it'll be mostly stuff you already know.

Still worth having either way . . . and to be fair I only went through it once, so I'm sure there's plenty more to get out of it.

Anyone else buy this yet?
 
Teegate

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
25,951
8,695
Bobbleton said:
I'd say this book is worth reading. It seems pretty big on citing random facts and statistics about the barrens, and does a decent job tying together a number of ecological principles and events that shaped the area.

If you're just generally interested in how the pines work ecologically its a good read, but if you're already pretty well versed on the subject, it'll be mostly stuff you already know.

Still worth having either way . . . and to be fair I only went through it once, so I'm sure there's plenty more to get out of it.

Anyone else buy this yet?
Click to expand...

Nice review Bob. I looked at it at B&N but was waiting to see if I could make it to a book-signing.

Guy
 
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