Case of the Vanishing Oaks

sea-maid submitted, created time 2 months 2 weeks (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

When Lewis and Clark crossed America's heartland, they tramped through wide swaths of oak forests. But today, the oaks are in decline, and as they vanish so too does a whole coterie of native herbaceous plants critical to forest ecosystems, according to a unique analysis, which lays the blame on efforts to suppress fires. "We're losing the plants that characterized a rich and diverse ecosystem that existed here for thousands of years," says Thomas Rooney, an ecologist at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and one of the study's authors. Oaks provide food directly for some forest animals, but they also affect almost every understory plant, which in turn affects the whole ecosystem.

One of the reasons? Lack of forest fires. Oaks are a more fire-resistant species, and small forest fires thin out other trees and give them the unobstructed sunlight that they need. Native Americans would regularly set small fires so that they could increase the acorn harvest.

Keywords: tress ecology oaks case-control study ornamental plants