RELATIONSHIPS IN NATURE

Issue 25, Autumn 2024

From the forests to the water, there is a host of relationships: tides shaping the beach, the mini-ecosystems in the beach wrack, clams which have special relationships with the sand and the plankton, wave erosion of the bluffs which deposits both sand and new glacial erratics on the beach, trees which soak up the sun available on the bluffs, and even river otters and osprey which bring some of the nutrients inside marine life up into the forests. photo by John F. Williams

RELATIONSHIPS IN NATURE

Issue 25, Autumn 2024

Managing Editor: John F. Williams

(Table of Contents is below this intro)

artwork by Suzanna Wright

A walk on the beach or in the woods can be a great way to observe not just the items in nature surrounding us, but the relationships between them. However, many of those relationships aren’t obvious, and some are not even fully understood.

For example, by just looking at a tree, one cannot see where its nutrients came from.

But we know that as salmon grow large in the Pacific Ocean, they absorb nutrients from the ocean ecosystem. Then they swim upstream, bringing those ocean nutrients with them, to be deposited in the forest by birds, bears, and many other creatures. In return, the trees help maintain the health of the streams the salmon use in several ways: shade and temperature regulation, erosion control, and habitat creation by fallen trees and branches.

In the past century we’ve witnessed a precipitous decline in the number of salmon returning to most of our riparian systems, and this has implications for these forest relationships that we are still trying to grasp.

This issue of Salish Magazine will bring you some stories, art, and poetry which help illustrate some of the relationships in our ecosystems.

Why?

There are many useful guidebooks about nature which describe individual species in detail. And there are numerous references and groups who aim to help with caring for specific kinds of species, such as gardens, salmon, or birds.

However, there is a growing volume of data showing how caring for specific species, even keystone species, doesn’t necessarily create the expected benefits to the ecosystem as a whole. Because the “system” in ecosystem is so complex, extensive modeling of the many pieces and relationships in the system is required in order to determine which remedial steps will have the preferable system-wide consequences.

Insect exploring ripe plum. photo by John F. Williams

In this issue we do not dive into the details of systems modeling, but we do hope to share with our readers some experiences of seeing our ecosystems through the perspective of the relationships.

Please send us your thoughts. Salish Magazine will continue to evolve and improve with ideas from you. Our SUBSCRIBE page also has a form you can use to contact us.

And if you’d like to submit content to future issues or help us in some other way, the VOLUNTEER page has a form for that.

Happy Autumn!

Issue 25: Relationships in Nature: Table of Contents

You can subscribe using the SUBSCRIBE menu above. It’s free, and we will send you newsletters when new articles and new issues are posted online.