ACER’s first experimental biodiversity plot was planted in 2002. Students, along with ACER staff and community volunteers, planted 2,100 trees using scientific biodiversity-sensitive designs on a one-hectare plot of land at the Humber Arboretum in Etobicoke, to specifically study the impact of climate change on the growth rate of different species of native trees within an urban heat island (the heat island of Toronto which, at the time, was already almost 4 degrees Celsius warmer than outside of Toronto.
The experimental biodiversity plot consisted of 28 20m x 20m quadrats (a quadrat being a square or rectangular “sub-plot” used by ecologists to study a sample of a physical area). Each quadrat was planted with a specific group of tree species: City Street, Forestry, Carolinian, Hardwood, or Mixed Wood, with the Carolinian, Hardwood or Mixed Wood quadrats planted with varying levels of biodiversity— high, moderate, or low.
To view the quadrat map, and the monitoring data collected over the years, click on the following links:
Humber Arboretum Experimental Plot: Quadrats 1-28
