"White Oak(Quercus alba) dominated the pre-European settlement(prior to 1780's) forests of southwestern Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and central West Virginia"..........."20th century reduction in fire frequency resulted in reduced oak abundance and accelerated recruitment of fire intolerant species such as Red Maple(Acer rubrum"..................."Based on witness tree data, the presettlement forests were primarily oak forests"........... "White oak was dominant by a large margin; on average, black oak was the second most abundant species and, notably, much more important than northern red oak".......... "Shade tolerant species, particularly red maple, were much less abundant than in current inventories"................"For the one area where size distribution data are available, the structure of this forest suggests a variable disturbance regime that allowed trees of all shade tolerances and growth strategies to occupy the overstory"................"For the counties of this study, forest clearing was at least initially more closely tied to early settlement patterns and local economies"................"Although some intensive logging occurred in the study area in connection with the charcoal industry and the extension of the railroads, the processes of forest clearing for agriculture, fire, and grazing were well underway by the time the most intensive logging operations of the late 1800s occurred elsewhere in the region"..............."Thus human disturbances began earlier, lasted longer, and varied in intensity; but their impact on forest composition was no less significant, and continued into the early 20th century when clearing of second growth forests, as well as invasive insects and disease, further altered forest composition and structure"............... "By the time of the most current forest inventories, significant shifts in species composition and dominance became evident"............."This change was marked by a significant increase in early successional species such as yellow-poplar, red maple, and black cherry that thrived in a high light environment where a combination of fire suppression, deer herbivory, and high levels of understory shade had reduced the potential for oak success"

http://community.wvu.edu/~jrentch2/pub4.pdf

Changes in Presettlement Forest Composition for Five Areas in the Central Hardwood Forest, 1784-1990 

James S. Rentch1 Ray R. Hicks, Jr.2 Division of Forestry West Virginia University P. O. Box 6125 Morgantown, WV 26506; 2005

Study Area: Eastern Ohio, south western Pennsylvania and 
north-central West Virginia

ABSTRACT: Witness tree tallies from early land surveys show that presettlement forests in eastern Ohio, southwestern Pennsylvania, and north central West Virginia were oak-dominated forests. Quercus alba(White Oak) was dominant by a large margin – at minimum, twice as abundant as Q. velutina(Black Oak), the second ranked species. Acer saccharum(sugar Maple) and Fagus grandifolia(American Beech) were among the top ten ranked species at each site; however, their importance value was consistently less than one-third the value for Q. alba.

White Oak leaves are round-lobed(not cut like red oak)

Quercus rubra(red oak), Q. prinus(chestnut oak), Castanea dentata(American Chestnut), and A. rubrum(red maple) were relatively minor components of presettlement forests, rarely ranked among the 10 most abundant tree species. Where diameter-distribution data were available, results show that oaks were well distributed among all but the smallest size classes, suggesting that oak replacement was a stable feature of these forests.

The majestic White Oak

 Multiple response permutation procedure analysis of pre-settlement and modern U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory analysis (FIA) data shows a clear separation by historical period. Modern inventories consistently show a significant decline in Q. alba abundance and a large increase for A. rubrum. Other early successional species such as Prunus serotina(black cherry), Liriodendron tulipifera(tulip tree), and Fraxinus americana(American Ash) showed large increases, although this trend varied somewhat among the sites studied.

The red maple leaf(and forest below)

The species composition of presettlement forests suggests a highly variable disturbance regime in which a variety of species with different life history strategies, disturbance tolerances, and growth requirements shared overstory position. Changes in species dominance over the time period reviewed suggest that 20th century reduction in fire frequency resulted in reduced oak abundance and accelerated recruitment of fire intolerant species.

"The longleaf pine forest ecosystem of the southeastern USA depends on frequent fire to maintain their structure and the unique diversity of plants and animals they support"............. "Longleaf pine forests once covering 90 million acres stretching from Virginia to Texas are now found on only about 3 percent of their original range"............"It thrives in a southern pine savanna—a sandy, dry environment that frequently burns. It's more grassland than a forest"............. "The habitat supports a diverse wildlife suite, the red-cockaded woodpecker, its iconic, keystone bird species"......... "They're one of the few woodpeckers that nest in live trees, making longleaf pines a perfect match as they are susceptible to red heart fungus, which decays the heartwood of living pines"............."That makes it an ideal feeding ground for Cockaded-woodpeckers, which excavate the cavities in live trees"..........."At least 27 species of vertebrates have been documented using abandoned red-cockaded cavities including wood ducks, flying squirrels, redbellied woodpeckers, redheaded woodpeckers, eastern bluebirds, brown-headed nuthatches, tufted titmice and great crested flycatchers.

http://peninsularfloridalcc.org/profiles/blogs/red-cockaded-woodpecker-a-rare-bird-s-stronghold-in-longleaf-pine

https://phys.org/news/2019-07-reveals-unexpected-role-longleaf-forests.html

https://phys.org/news/2019-08-virginia-founding-forest-decimated-longleaf.html

Red-cockaded Woodpecker A rare bird's stronghold in Longleaf pine forest

•  Feb 26, 2015

by: Damian Smith

Gainesville, Fla. – The red-cockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis) is truly a one-of-kind species and served as my gateway into conservation. It is the only woodpecker species in the world to make cavities in live trees and one of the few bird species found only in North America.

But the longleaf pine ecosystem (Pinus palustris) is necessary for the red-cockaded woodpeckers, and the decimation of this habitat has caused this woodpecker’s population to crash.

The longleaf pine ecosystem once dominated the Southeastern US, including most of Florida. The early Spanish explorers in the 1500s described being able to walk for days in an uninterrupted sea of grass and long needle pines. Shaped by frequent fires in the late spring and summer, it looked more like an African Savannah than a typical forest.

           

  The regular fires and vast area covered by longleaf pine created unique, diverse habitats for numerous plants and animals, many found exclusively within the bounds of that ecosystem. Unlike other pines species  such as slash or loblolly, its ability to survive in wet flatwood to dry upland habitats makes a forest dominated by longleaf pine an excellent choice for a variety of land-uses: wildlife, hunting, timber.

But this isn’t the image most people visualize when they think of the Southern forest; instead, landowners, cattlemen, hunter, and city dwellers today imagine a hardwood forest with infrequent fire. The fire exclusion and destruction of the longleaf pine forest began after the civil war and led to the construction of the southern forest most people now see outside their houses. Today’s forests have caused problems for many unique creatures found in longleaf pine forests, such as the red-cockaded woodpecker, which saw its fortunes rise and fall along with the longleaf’s.

As the longleaf pine forest declined so did the red-cockaded woodpecker populations, eventually leading to it being listed as a federal endangered species. Current populations are estimated at 1 percent, 12,500 birds, of the orginal population size.  It stands only about 8 inches with a wingspan of 14 inches and weighs 1.5 ounces. Only the males possess the red “cockade” behind the eye, with both sexes exhibiting black and white bars, a black crown and white cheeks. The territorial, non-migratory bird species lives in family groups averaging three to four animals, with a territory typically 125 to 200 acres in size.

Red-cockaded woodpeckers exhibit a strong preference for mature longleaf pine over other southern pine species. It spends one to three years making a single cavity in a tree with red-heart rot, a fungus that affects the tree’s heartwood, in which it excavates nesting holes, drilling smaller holes to drain pitch. Groups live in loose colonies in clusters consisting of one to 20 cavities. Producing these cavities is difficult, so they aggressively defend their territories from other competitors rather than move.

The red-cockaded woodpecker’s clusters where they live experience regular fire, with the best habitat marked by large-diameter mature pines, an open understory with few scrub oaks ( also known as Turkey oak) and low shrubs to choke out the native grasses.

The grasses are crucial for spreading the fire and maintaining an open understory, which provides the birds with plenty of insects. The birds’ cavities, combined with frequent fire, create plentiful habitat for small mammals, reptiles and insects after the woodpeckers abandon them. Larger woodpecker species, such as red-bellied and pileated woodpeckers, will take over and enlarge a cavitiy, eventually increasing the openings to later allow wood ducks, fox squirrels, raccoons and eastern screech owls to nest.

A red-cockaded woodpecker’s presence in a longleaf stand indicates a healthy, productive and well-managed landscape, which protects the native biodiversity and provides for our other natural resources needs.

Are you interested in having longleaf pine on your property? If so, Natural Resources Conservation Service  provides technical and financial assistance. Learn more at your local USDA service center.

About the author

Damian Smith has worked in both academic and government natural resource management programs with the US Forest Service, Northern Research Station and North Carolina Plant Conservation. He is happiest when he can split his time between prescribed burns, research and land management. Contact Damian Smith with questions at 850.339.5047. 

500 FOOT WINDMILLS, SOLAR PANEL FARMS AND ELECTRIC CARS ARE THE FARTHEST THING FROM GOING GREEN—MORE LIKE GOING DESTRUCTIVE!............"A single electric-car battery weighs about 1,000 pounds".........."Fabricating one requires digging up, moving and processing more than 500,000 pounds of raw materials somewhere on the planet".............."The alternative? Use gasoline and extract one-tenth as much total tonnage to deliver the same number of vehicle-miles over the battery’s seven-year life"................"Building one wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete and 45 tons of non-recyclable plastic"............."Solar power requires even more cement, steel and glass— not to mention other metals".............."Global silver and indium mining will jump 250% and 1,200% respectively over the next couple of decades to provide the materials necessary to build the number of solar panels, the International Energy Agency forecasts"..............."Building enough wind turbines to supply half the world’s electricity would require nearly two billion tons of coal to produce the concrete and steel, along with two billion barrels of oil to make the composite blades"............."More than 90% of the world’s solar panels are built in Asia on coal-heavy electric grids". "Until we truly come up with a real green energy alternative, nuclear power, gas, coal, oil and wood destroy much less of the planet than the delusions screamed at us by so many "carnival barker" politicians"

https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-you-want-renewable-energy-get-ready-to-dig-11565045328

If You Want ‘Renewable Energy,’ Get Ready to Dig

Building one wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete and 45 tons of plastic.

By

Mark P. Mills

Aug. 5, 2019

Democrats dream of powering society entirely with wind and solar farms combined with massive batteries. Realizing this dream would require the biggest expansion in mining the world has seen and would produce huge quantities of waste.

“Renewable energy” is a misnomer. Wind and solar machines and batteries are built from nonrenewable materials. And they wear out. Old equipment must be decommissioned, generating millions of tons of waste. The International Renewable Energy Agency calculates that solar goals for 2050 consistent with the Paris Accords will result in old-panel disposal constituting more than double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste. Consider some other sobering numbers:

500 foot windmill farm

A single electric-car battery weighs about 1,000 pounds. Fabricating one requires digging up, moving and processing more than 500,000 pounds of raw materials somewhere on the planet. The alternative? Use gasoline and extract one-tenth as much total tonnage to deliver the same number of vehicle-miles over the battery’s seven-year life.

When electricity comes from wind or solar machines, every unit of energy produced, or mile traveled, requires far more materials and land than fossil fuels. That physical reality is literally visible: A wind or solar farm stretching to the horizon can be replaced by a handful of gas-fired turbines, each no bigger than a tractor-trailer.

Solar farm

Building one wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete and 45 tons of nonrecyclable plastic. Solar power requires even more cement, steel and glass—not to mention other metals. Global silver and indium mining will jump 250% and 1,200% respectively over the next couple of decades to provide the materials necessary to build the number of solar panels, the International Energy Agency forecasts. World demand for rare-earth elements—which aren’t rare but are rarely mined in America—will rise 300% to 1,000% by 2050 to meet the Paris green goals. If electric vehicles replace conventional cars, demand for cobalt and lithium, will rise more than 20-fold. That doesn’t count batteries to back up wind and solar grids.

Tesla electric car

Last year a Dutch government-sponsored study concluded that the Netherlands’ green ambitions alone would consume a major share of global minerals. “Exponential growth in [global] renewable energy production capacity is not possible with present-day technologies and annual metal production,” it concluded.

The demand for minerals likely won’t be met by mines in Europe or the U.S. Instead, much of the mining will take place in nations with oppressive labor practices. The Democratic Republic of the Congo produces 70% of the world’s raw cobalt, and China controls 90% of cobalt refining. The Sydney-based Institute for a Sustainable Future cautions that a global “gold” rush for minerals could take miners into “some remote wilderness areas [that] have maintained high biodiversity because they haven’t yet been disturbed.”

natural gas well and pad

What’s more, mining and fabrication require the consumption of hydrocarbons. Building enough wind turbines to supply half the world’s electricity would require nearly two billion tons of coal to produce the concrete and steel, along with two billion barrels of oil to make the composite blades. More than 90% of the world’s solar panels are built in Asia on coal-heavy electric grids.

Oil Wells

Engineers joke about discovering “unobtanium,” a magical energy-producing element that appears out of nowhere, requires no land, weighs nothing, and emits nothing. Absent the realization of that impossible dream, hydrocarbons remain a far better alternative than today’s green dreams.

Coal Mine

Well-manicured grass lawns have long been associated with the American Dream, but a growing "rewilding" movement now seeks to reclaim yard space for nature............My own California yard is now a CERTIFIED WILDLIFE HABITAT as defined by the National Wildlife Federation, offering food, cover, water and a place to raise young....................By ripping out a good 40% of my front and back lawn and planting native trees, shrubs and flowers, the quality of my yard's habitat changed, attracting mammals, birds, reptiles and pollinators............It is fair to note that overcoming the American tradition of having a lawn in favor of letting nature take its course is not always an easy sell to your neighbors………….I am here to tell you that it is well worth the effort—for them, you and the creatures that we live among

click on link to read full article

https://phys.org/news/2019-08-wild-ungardening-root-america.html

music from the 1970's capturing the spirit of rewilding
The Outlaws-“Green Grass and High Tides forever”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R82OM5tzcrk

AUGUST 4, 2019

Back to the wild: how 'ungardening' took root in America

by Issam Ahmed And Ariela Navarro

Wherever they have all existed through the millenia together, Wolves, Pumas and Elk have all thrived.............A new Study depicts how Elk optimize their chances of survival by understanding the locales and times of day when their life-long predators hunt and sleep............"In the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, Cougars hunt mainly in forested, rugged areas at night, whereas wolves hunt mainly in grassy, flat areas during morning and at dusk".................."Elk sidestep both cougars and wolves by selecting for areas outside these high-risk domains, namely forested, rugged areas during daylight when cougars were resting, and grassy, flat areas at night when wolves were snoozing"..............."The bottom line is the ability for elk to coexist with wolves and cougars is consistent with their "long, shared evolutionary history"

https://phys.org/news/2019-08-cougars-wolves-yellowstone-elk-threats.html

AUGUST 2, 2019

Fearing cougars more than wolves, Yellowstone elk manage threats from both predators

by Utah State University

Wolves are charismatic, conspicuous, and easy to single out as the top predator affecting populations of elk, deer, and other prey animals. However, a new study has found that the secretive cougar is actually the main predator influencing the movement of elk across the winter range of northern Yellowstone National Park.

The study highlights that where prey live with more than one predator species, attention to one predator that ignores the role of another may lead to misunderstandings about the impact of predators on prey populations and ecosystems. It also offers new insight into how prey can use differences in hunting behavior among predators to maintain safety from all predators simultaneously.

Utah State University researchers Michel Kohl and Dan MacNulty co-led the study, published in Ecology Letters, with Toni Ruth (Hornocker Wildlife Institute and Wildlife Conservation Society), Matt Metz (University of Montana), Dan Stahler, Doug Smith, and P.J. White (Yellowstone National Park). Their work was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Utah State University as part of Kohl's doctoral research. The study was based on long-term data from the Park's wolf and elk monitoring programs and Ruth's cougar research, which is detailed in a forthcoming book from the University Press of Colorado.

The team revisited global positioning system (GPS) data from 27 radio-collared elk that had been collected in 2001-2004 when numbers of wolves and cougars were highest. Kohl and MacNulty combined the elk GPS data with information on the daily activity patterns of GPS-collared cougars and wolves and the locations of cougar- and wolf-killed elk to test if elk avoided these predators by selecting for 'vacant hunting domains', places and times where and when neither predator was likely to kill elk.

"Cougars hunted mainly in forested, rugged areas at night, whereas wolves hunted mainly in grassy, flat areas during morning and at dusk" said Kohl, lead author of the paper and now an assistant professor at the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia in Athens. "Elk sidestepped both cougars and wolves by selecting for areas outside these high-risk domains, namely forested, rugged areas during daylight when cougars were resting, and grassy, flat areas at night when wolves were snoozing".

Recognizing that cougars and wolves hunted in different places and at different times allowed the researchers to see how elk could simultaneously minimize threats from both predators. "Had we ignored the fact that these predators were on different schedules, we would have concluded, incorrectly, that avoiding one predator necessarily increased exposure to the other," said MacNulty, who is an associate professor in USU's Department of Wildland Resources and Ecology Center. "Movement out of the grassy, flat areas and into the forested, rugged areas to avoid wolves did not result in greater risk from cougars and vice versa because these predators were active at different times of the day".

Despite the compatibility of elk spatial responses to cougars and wolves, Ruth, who is now executive director of the Salmon Valley Stewardship in Salmon, Idaho, cautioned that "some adult elk still end up on the cougar and wolf menu, with those in poor condition during winter being most at risk".

Nevertheless, "the findings help explain why we observe wolves, cougars, and elk all coexisting and thriving on the Yellowstone landscape" said Stahler, who leads the current study of cougars in the Park. He notes that the ability of elk to coexist with wolves and cougars is consistent with their "long, shared evolutionary history".

More surprising, however, was that cougars, not wolves, exerted the most pressure on elk habitat selection. "Wolves are often the presumed or blamed predator for any change in a prey population, numerical or behavioral," said Smith, who leads the Park's wolf program. "Our research shows that this is not necessarily true, and that other large predators in addition to wolves need to be considered."

"Despite the fact that most prey species live in habitats with multiple predators, the majority of research on predator-prey interactions focuses on a single predator species," added Betsy von Holle, program director for the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology. "The novelty of this research is the simultaneous study of multiple predator species, revealing the complexity of predator avoidance behavior by the prey."

More information: Michel T. Kohl et al, Do prey select for vacant hunting domains to minimize a multi‐predator threat?, Ecology Letters (2019). DOI: 10.1111/ele.1331

The Appalachian mixed mesophytic forest—A USA biodiversity gem!

http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/tbw/OLD/soils.veg.fall.2016/lecture.outlines/ecology.chap.24/temperate.forests/mixed_mesophytic_forest.htm

  

            THE MIXED MESOPHYTIC FOREST

One of the most biologically diverse 

temperate forest regions on earth, 

the mixed mesophytic is a product

of fertile red calcareous soils

 formed from underlying 

limestone, producing an 

unusually diverse tree flora, a

30 tree-species-suite of magnificence! 

           TREE SPECIES 

• sugar maple (Acer saccharum)
• beech (Fagus grandifolia)
• tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera)
• basswood (Tilia americana)
• northern red oak (Quercus rubra)
• cucumber tree (Magnolia acuminata)
• black walnut (Juglans nigra)
• eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis)
• white ash (Fraxinus americana)
• sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua)
• yellow buckeye (Aesculus flava)
• white oak (Quercus alba)
• northern red oak (Quercus rubra)
• chinkapin oak (Quercus muehlenbergii)
• shagbark hickory (Carya ovata)
• sugar maple (Acer saccharum)
• eastern red-cedar (Juniperus virginiana)

Along with the forest there is a rich undergrowth of:

• ferns,
• fungi,
• herbaceous plants,
• shrubs
• small trees

The Mixed Mesophytic Forests occur west of the Appalachian Mountains in northwest Alabama, east central Tennessee, northeastern Kentucky, western North Carolina, most of West Virginia, southeastern Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania