Introduction to the Natural History of Nova Scotia

What is the Natural History of Nova Scotia?

The Natural History of Nova Scotia, volume 1: Topics and Habitats takes an ecological or naturalist's approach to understanding our environment. Cultural environment information has been included throughout the book to provide a description of the modern landscape, which is heavily modified by human activity. The focus is on resource use; not a comprehensive history.

The Natural History of Nova Scotia is intended to provide a framework in which the significant natural resources of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada, can be understood, managed and interpreted.

Nova Scotia's natural history is described from two perspectives:

Topics, or elements of the natural environment (e.g. geology, climate, soils, animals), and
Habitats, where our many diverse species live.

In Topics, basic information about the environment of Nova Scotia is presented in the conventional way. In Habitats, the key ecological features of a wide variety of habitat types are described. In a forthcoming volume, Natural or Theme Regions will be described, integrating natural history with the province's geography.

How to use the Electronic Version

The Natural History of Nova Scotia (volume 1) is a book of more than 500 pages, divided first into two main parts (Topics and Habitats) and then into more than 100 smaller sections. An exact copy of each of these sections is available here as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file. On the web site, each section is summarized for you to browse or search, including a brief introduction, a list of headings from the section, a keyword list, and cross-references to other sections. We suggest that you try to identify sections of interest in one of the following ways:

view the table of contents for both the Topics and Habitats sections,
browse the summary pages for each section,
follow some of the many hyperlinked cross-references on the summary pages, or
search the web site for keywords or phrases of interest.

Once you have identified a section you want, download the PDF file to your computer by clicking on the PDF icon on the summary page. Read or print it at your leisure. If you download many files, you may want to get the PDF manifest which lists all PDF filenames and gives a short title for each.

If you don't have Adobe's Acrobat PDF reader, you should get it now. You can't view any of the main book pages without this software. You can read and search all of the summary pages with your World Wide Web browser.

Audience

The Natural History of Nova Scotia provides an interpretation of scientific information. To use it requires a basic level of knowledge and some effort on the part of the reader. There is some repetition in the text in order to assist with the type of cross-referencing needed to achieve a broad understanding of the subject.

The information should be useful for science educators; parks and natural areas planning, management and interpretation; land use planning for municipalities; development project planning, assessment and evaluation; eco-tourism and recreational planning.

We expect that this book will be most useful for

students (high school and university),
teachers,
tourism operators, and tourists,
scientists, field naturalists, environmental planners, and
members of the general public who are interested in natural history.

Availability

The Natural History of Nova Scotia is available in two formats:

a printed softcover spiral-bound book, and
this web site.

Introductory Material from the Print Version

In addition to this introduction, several introductory sections from the printed book are available.

An introduction to the book and notes on the organization and use of the book. (Download PDF file, 26k, 2 pages)
The acknowledgements page. (Download PDF file, 21k, 2 pages)