Davidsonia

Lewis, G. 2004. A Hard Life (25 Years Later): An Update on BC Serpentines. Davidsonia. 15(4):135-142,147-149

It has been 25 years since renowned ecologist and botanist Arthur Kruckeberg first introduced, within the pages of Davidsonia, the ultramafic (serpentine) soil habitats of British Columbia. In what was likely the first article of its kind on BC serpentines, Kruckeberg described the harsh realities of ultramafic soils faced by plant life. These included an adverse chemical and physical soil environment, and the myriad forms of botanical response to this “serpentine effect” (ecotypic differentiation, speciation, exclusion, indifference, heavy metal hyper-accumulation, etc.) that give rise to a host of unique ecologies. He also outlined his and other workers’ botanical and ecological observations from various BC ultramafic sites and compared them to the well-known ultramafic sites of Oregon and California thereby placing them in a western North American ultramafic context.