HABITAT FRAGMENTATION
Final project for a Photo I class. The theme of this project was environmentalism (Which was particularly exciting for me because I am a conservation and biodiversity biology specialist). These photos were taken in the surrounding highly fragmented Morningside area of Scarborough in Toronto, Ontario. The style of this project was inspired by David Hockney's polaroid collages as a visual repersation of fragmentation. For those of you who are not biology majors I will include a sample of an abstract I wrote for a research article I previously wrote about habitat fragmentation.
WHAT IS FRAGMENTATION?
Habitat fragmentation is the reduction of a continuous habitat into several smaller spatially isolated communities, and is one of the most prominent factors contributing to the extinction debit of a population. (Extinction debit: When a population of a species is essentially extinct, where the present habitat has been damaged to the point where the current surviving individuals will not be able to reproduce a new generation). Fragmentation often occurs in upcomming ubran areas where construction and urbanization often leaves irreparable habitat damage, despite any restoration efforts (If any).
LOCATION 1
Morningside ravine, traces of path construction through out the ravine has left traces of concerete, large scrap metal remains, concrete rubble, man made cliffs, and countless other deformations to the original habitat. The surrounding flora can be seen slowing wraping itself around these reminemts, however this scarring will never go away.
LOCATION 2
Within the Morningside ravine, a small, now abandoned, club house was built. There is now graffiti and litter surrounding the area, including pieces of wood originating from outside of the forest, and left over pipes. The trees surrounding this area can be seen have been vandalized and their bark destroyed.
LOCATION 3
Numberous dead tries lie from being human vandalism. Additionally, human activity has brought in numberous invasive species which are now taking over the forest and out competeing the trees for nutrients. Many of these tries have an extinction debit, and will die with out reproducing the next generation.
LOCATION 4
A very popular and seemingly lush park among local residences, however in reality it completely lacks biodiversity. Many of the grasses and trees were planted by humans ans were not apart of the original natural landscape. This monoculture of species does not facilitate high biodiversity within the parkland and forest and does little the benifit he local species.
LOCATION 5
Once again, this park is extremely popular and scenic, however all of the lakeshore and pathways were man made. The lake's shore line is filled with not only non-natural rocks, but left over concerete and construction materials. This may seem normal to the average residence, however it is extremely harmful to the local species.
OUTTAKES
Several hundred photos were taken for this project, here are a few out takes from the lot. Will be updated soon.
