1. Le Laboratoire Jacques-Rousseau

Regular staff members at the Laboratoire Jacques-Rousseau include Alayn C. Larouche, biologist and palæobotanist (macrofossil analysis), and Nicole Morasse, geographer and pollen analyst. With Pierre J. H. Richard, the staff is responsible for all the activities, including student training. The lab occupies two rooms in a 80 years old off-campus building, formerly an english elementary school where early in his carreer, Scoggan taught Natural Sciences. H. J. Scoggan is the author of The Flora of Bic and the Gaspé Peninsula, Québec (Nat. Mus. Can. Bull. 115, 1950). The Laboratoire de palæophytogéographie et de palynologie has been named after Jacques Rousseau, an eminent ethnobotanist, student then colleague of Frère Marie-Victorin, the author-manager of Flore laurentienne. Jacques Rousseau was responsible for the artificial key to the plants in this flora, and for most of the ethnobotanic comments that enrich each taxonomic entry of this superb document.

The laboratory holds a collection of 2,329 pollen and spores reference slides covering 1,480 species, a reference collection of various organs (fruits, seeds, leaves, etc.) of 1,493 slides for 970 species of vascular plants, essentially. The library includes ca. 5,500 reprints and 500 books. Well over 12,300 titles pertaining mainly to palæopalynology and related topics are computerized in a bibliographical database allowing easy access to literature, thanks to the contribution of Mrs Dominique Richard.

2. BDPMQ / Québec pollen and macrofossil database

Over the years, the lab has accumulated over 200 pollen and macrofossil diagrams from sediments of lakes and bogs from all over Québec. The records are all computerized using Paradox as the database software. The published information is integrated into the Canadian Palæoecological Database (Hélène Jetté, Geological Survey of Canada), as well as into the North American Pollen Database (Eric Grimm) with the National Geophysical Data Center of Boulder, Colorado. Unpublished data may be consulted in the lab, or released for specific projects after mutual agreement. BDPMQ stands for "Base de données polliniques et macrofossiles du Québec". Alayn Larouche is our computer wizard.

3. Recherches en cours / Current research

The overall objectives of the research programme in the laboratory are: 1) to reconstruct the gradients of abiotic conditions in Québec since the last glaciation, hopefully with methods independant of pollen or macrofossil analyses; 2) to identify the nature and kind of the responses of plant populations to these conditions that vary in space and time; and, 3) to identify the regional palæoclimatic events that are correlative with the more global ones, as revealed by the palæoclimatic study of the marine sediments in the North Atlantic and from the Greenland ice cores. Emphasis is placed on the reconstruction of the palæohydrological conditions through studies of peatland development and lake-level changes in southern Québec.

Gaspé Peninsula is the principal area we elected for investigating Late-glacial and Early postglacial environmental changes. In Gaspé Peninsula, the diversity of the landscape units found over short distances (summit tundras, plateaus at 1000, 700 and 300 m, enclosed coastal valleys with sea spray) offers ideal conditions for ecological and climatic reconstructions. Besides, the existence of varied palæogeographic (proglacial seas and lakes, ice sheet and glaciers) and physiographic conditions throughout southern Québec allow the study of vegetational and climatic gradients in a periglacial setting during almost 5000 years, and the reconstruction of Holocene climatic changes in both continental and maritime environments.

The laboratory is involved in the international BIOME 6000 project: "Towards a global palaeovegetation data set", led by Colin Prentice (Plant Ecology, Lund University). It is also contributing to the North Atlantic Seaboard Programme (NASP) of the IGCP-253 project (Termination of the Pleistocene), Les Cwynar (Biology, University of New Brunswick) being the leader for this side of the Atlantic.

Recent research by Nancy Marcoux (M.Sc.) in northern Gaspé peninsula led to the discovery of a proglacial expression of the Younger Dryas oscillation. The oscillation occurs entirely with the initial herb tundra phase of the postglacial vegetational development. Pierre J.H. Richard and Alayn Larouche recently contributed to the palæoecological reconstructions of the oldest PalæoIndian site in Québec (8,200 BP), a Plano site near Rimouski in the Lower St. Lawrence region.

Much effort is devoted to the characterization, dating, and understanding of a widespread Early Holocene reversal in the postglacial afforestation process in Eastern Québec.

Chercheurs et étudiants gradués / Researchers and graduate students

Alexander Wolfe (Ph.D., 1994 at Queens University; NSERC postdoctoral fellow) has recently joined the lab. His ability as palæolimnologist using mainly diatom analysis is invaluable in adding an independent method in the reconstruction of palæoenvironmental conditions.

Hélène Jetté (Ph.D. candidate) is pursuing an independent research project in the Mackenzie River Delta and surrounding areas, using a variety of methods to decipher the postglacial palæoclimatic signal.

Martin Lavoie (Ph.D. candidate) is centrally involved in the reconstruction of the palæohydrological conditions through studies of peatland development and lake-level changes in southern Québec. He uses pollen, macrofossil and thecamoebians analyses in these reconstructions.

Autres projets en cours / Other on-going projects

Holocene vegetational reconstructions and fire history in the LG-4 area of the Open Boreal Forest, Central Québec (P. J. H. Richard)

Climatic interpretation of the subalpine postglacial vegetational history in the McGerrigle Mountains, Gaspésie, Québec, with P. Gangloff and F. M'Pindy.

Postglacial vegetational history in the Nunavik Crater area, Arctic Québec, with B. Fréchette, P. Gangloff, A. Larouche and M. Bouchard.

Holocene history of a permafrost outlier in an Empetrum heath at Ile Nue de Mingan, Côte Nord du Saint-Laurent, Québec, with J. M. Dubois, B. Landry and A. Larouche.

Pollen fluxes over southern Québec, with L. Durand and P. Comtois.

4. Mémoires récents / Recent M.Sc. theses

Fréchette, Bianca, 1994. Le till pollinifère de la région du cratère du Nouveau-Québec, Ungava, Québec. Mémoire de M.Sc., géologie, Université de Montréal, 209 p. + 52 p. d'annexes. Co-direction avec Michel Bouchard.

Lacroix, Jacques, 1993. Étude palæéocologique d'un marécage riverain au lac Saint-François, Québec. Mémoire de M.Sc., géographie, Université de Montréal, 147 p.

Marcoux, Nancy, 1993. Histoire tardiglaciaire et postglaciaire de la végétation près de Madeleine- Centre en Gaspésie, Québec. Mémoire de M.Sc., géographie, Université de Montréal, 131 p. + 34 p. d'annexes.

5. Publications récentes / Recent publications

Richard, P.J.H., 1994. Postglacial Palæophytogeography of the Eastern St. Lawrence River Watershed and the Climatic Signal of the Pollen Record. Palæogeography, Palæoclimatology and Palæoecology 109(2-4):137-163.

Gangloff, P., B. Hétu, F. Courchesne et P. J. H. Richard, 1994. Gélistructures d'un pergélisol würmien sur le piémont des Pyrénées atlantiques. Géographie physique et Quaternaire 48(2): 169-178.

Richard, P. J. H., 1994. Wisconsinan Late-glacial environmental change in Québec: a regional synthesis. Journal of Quaternary Science 9(2): 165-170.

Richard, P. J. H., et A. C. Larouche, 1994. Histoire postglaciaire de la végétation et du climat dans la région de Rimouski, Québec. pp. 49-89, in: Il y a 8000 ans à Rimouski... Paléoécologie et archéologie d'un site de la culture plano. Chapdelaine, C., édit., Collection Paléo-Québec, no 22, Recherches amérindiennes au Québec et ministère des Transports du Québec, 314 pp.

Sous presses / In press:

Lavoie, M., A. C. Larouche, et P. J. H. Richard, 1995. Conditions du développement de la tourbière de Farnham, Québec. Géographie physique et Quaternaire, in press.

Marcoux, N., et P. J. H. Richard, 1995. Végétation et fluctuations climatiques postglaciaires sur la côte septentrionale gaspésienne, Québec. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, in press.

Richard, P. J. H., 1994. Palynological assessment of organic materials. Chapter prepared for the Methods Manual, Canadian Soil Science Society, ms 14 pp., in press.

For more information, please contact: Dr. Pierre J.H. Richard, Département de géographie, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, "Centre-Ville", Montréal, Québec, H3C 3J7, Tel: (514) 343-8022, Fax: (514) 343-8008
 

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Note: This article first appeared in CAP Newsletter 17(2):10-12, 1994.