Intervale Lab 5/1/2019
The Burlington Intervale is the farming center within Burlington and is home to 40 small scale organic CSA program farms. This area is a combination of agricultural fields, forest patches, and the Winooski floodplain. The weather was about 40-50 *F and slightly cool with a light drizzle of rain that cleared up, with a light breeze. Plants observed included Boxelder Maple, Ostrich Fern, and Silver Maple; animal tracks of common raccoon and coyote were observed. The environment was a silver maple-ostrich fern floodplain forest which is a common Vermont riparian ecosystem; no invasive species were identified. Due to the large amount of edge habitats created in the Intervale by agricultural activity, there is an impact on biodiversity as edge effect decreases the amount of interior forest available and decreases the populations of these species. The impact of the agricultural activity would be much greater if there wasn't the riparian buffers in the form of the floodplain forest filtering agricultural runoff from going directly into the river and lowers the potential for excess nutrient levels within the river. The surrounding landscapes such as the floodplain forest support a large portion of the species diversity by having an intact natural ecosystem for habitat and helps to offset the negative impacts of farming in the Intervale upon species diversity.
