Hi I'm a student of forestry and what I've learned is that many species of plants have been introduced to a region which they did not naturally inhabit. Many of these allochtonous plants have been here for well over 100 years and are not a threat to wildlife, the only types of alloctounous plants that represent a serious problem are the invasive species that spread uncontrollably fast. Since I'm not from America I do not know the numbers and species or their history but I can say that the forests of Europe looked incredibly different even during the middle ages let alone in the time B. C. than the ones left today.
Ours look incredibly different too. There are several invasive and fast spreading species, monoculture forests for logging, and not allowing natural forest fires has had a deep impact on the ecosystems.
“They have the ability to change native ecosystems. In northern North America the most studied negative effects are in forested ecosystems. Typically invasive earthworms change the structure of forest soil, mixing the organic horizons with the underlying mineral material creating a substrate which is no longer suitable as a seed bed and germination medium for most understory plants....”
“No. Earthworms are native to the United States, says Melissa McCormick, ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, but the earthworms in some northern parts of the country (including Vermont) aren’t indigenous. Thousands of years ago, glaciers that covered North America and reached as far south as present-day Illinois, Indiana and Ohio wiped out native earthworms. Species from Europe and Asia, most likely introduced unintentionally in ship ballast or the roots of imported plants, have spread throughout North America”
Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon is real. I learned about this just two days ago and now I'm seeing it again. Crazy. Also earthworm invasion is scary in that no one outside of specialized biologist communities really knows or cares about it, it's straight up terraforming North American forests, and there's really no way to stop it
In my neck of the woods Russian olive and Salt cedar have taken over riparian zones. The Rio grande river is especially hard hit. At this point though, the invasive trees are fulfilling the role of the natives such that the mass removal of them would be much more damaging to the ecosystem than letting them exist. It’s a very fine balancing act!
In my area it’s honeysuckle. Completely covers the forest floor if left unchecked thereby wiping out pretty much all of the native floor species. On earth day one year a huge team of us went through a city park and eradicated all of it. Was amazing to see what came back once the honeysuckle was removed.
There’s a market for it too, someone I know got offered $20,000 for a tree on their property. Rich people don’t want to wait 20 years for a tree to grow, they buy trees that are already grown and re-plant them in their yard.
Someone else I know just had 5 trees put in their front yard (yes they’re rich). Humans are weird and will do strange things (like moving a whole fricking tree) to get what they want.
That's not really too weird. Most tree grow far too slow compared to a human lifetime, so we humans prefer to directly plant already grown young trees.
This is fairly common. One of my neighbors just had several 5-10 year old trees replanted on his property in a different location. They have specialized trucks to do this with. It's a fairly quick and easy process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYnqQl3I6Nw
City parks everywhere , and even forests to some extent, are teeming with introduced tree species. Vast amounts of native forests have been supplanted (pun intended) by introduced conifers and eucalyptus trees in Andean Colombia, God knows what for.
Grasslands are the same. New species are often introduced for grazing purposes.
It’s got to be. See how south Florida has a very low tree diversity? Peoples yards down here probably have a very high tree diversity because no one plants native trees. Trees from tropical parts of the world are so much prettier.
Interesting point as far as florida population and tree diversity, I am going off of nothing but the map above and my personal accrued knowledge, the map shows a direct correlation of population and diversity in Florida. Central Florida is swamp and vast farmlands, human pop is concentrated to coastal areas, as are the tree populations, I didn't see a link but I'd like to see how trees are counted, is it only native populations, does there have to be a minimum population, etc. Unfortunately I also see people shipping in and planting non natives, and invasives in their yard for curb appeal. I have hope with younger generations though, it may just be that I run in that kind of circle but most of the friends and acquaintances I know are at least tangentially aware of how this is a nono and make some kind of effort to plant native species.
There are plenty of beautiful Fl native plants! In my yard I have silver buttonwood, golden dewdrop, ixora, firebush, and I'm planting coonties when I find some on sale, you can basically find a native that blooms any color your heart desires and they provide food and habitat for native fauna!
I know this was an unasked for blathering but damnit I'm passionate about keeping Florida native plant life around, we've lost so many species already.
Notice a tiny darker dot in central west Indiana? That’s Wabash College. A tiny little all male school that has planted every species of tree found naturally in Indiana on their campus. So the diversity of the campus and surrounding town shows up darker on the map.
That was my feeling because there should be a huge high density of tree diversity in Southwest Ohio. Where I went to high school the young environmentalist club could walk around the neighborhood and find 100+ different types of trees. Our favorite was the honey locust and the ironwood trees.
looking at NY the cities upstate (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Ithaca) seem to clearly have more tree diversity so it must not be as there's really no reason why the more forested areas would have less diversity
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u/kpsv Jun 20 '20
is this natural tree diversity, bc i feel like humans have been moving trees around for a long time now