return of a king

This weeks article from the Applied journal of ecology is about the American Chestnut tree and its' struggles over the past century.  nobody here probably knows about the chestnut tree since is has been gone since about the 1920's.  I blight from Asia was imported on some other trees that infected the some chestnut trees in the bronx zoo in the early 1900's and shot through its range in a short amount of time.  The American chestnut made up 60 percent of the forest trees in its native Appalachian mountain  range. 
  
 The trees were killed off, but they can resprout stump sprouts from stumps of dead trees because the blight does not attack roots so the root systems live.  This means that small trees can survive until they reach about 20 feet tall and then the blight attacks and kills them. 

  Efforts have been made by the American chestnut foundation and others to bring the chestnut back since it was such an important part of the eastern forest.  They have been cross breeding with Asiatic strains that are resistant to the blight and reintroducing them into the wild after they breed back in 99% of the American genes.  No large trees have been able to survive yet, but researchers are getting closer.  They have found a fungus that kills the blight and does not attack any other trees so it can be introduced into the chestnut range. The only problem is that it does not move fast so people would basically have to individually inoculate each chestnut tree with it which would devastate funds.   This is a never ending battle and it is going to be a long road, but with help and pray, there is a possibility that Americans will see the giant chestnut trees of the past one day. 

Making a new leak to fix another leak

      Humans have long been controlling every aspect of nature the best that we can. This is certianly evident in the timber industry where money is on the line every time a tree is dies.  The article from The Journal of Applied Ecology for this week discusses how one rescue effort has helped to cause another problem. 
    
       The Rocky Mountian region of the U.S. and Canada is losing thousands of acres of lodgepole pine a year to the mountian pine beetle.  Lodgepole pine is an important timber resource and also food resource for animals that feed on the nutrient rich pine nuts.  Loggers are cutting as fast as they can to head off the beetle before it is too late and companies are planting young lodgepole pines as fast as they can to replace the ones that had to be removed.  Here in this solution is the problem and is causing an even bigger problem.

   Lodgepole pines do not grow in unevenage stands because the seeds do not germinate until after a hot fire(called serontanous seeds) so all the trees are the same age in stands that stretch for hundreds of miles (these stands were growing before timber was activily managed by timber companies beginning in the early 1900's so none of them have been planted by man).  So nobody knew that old trees near young trees could result in large die offs of younger trees. Old Lodgepole pines are host to a root collar beetle, the Warren Root Collar beetle.  The Mountian pine beetle attacks the tree above the ground while the other attacks roots.  The root collar beetles do not kill large trees due to defense chemicals that keep them from getting inside the root, but can kill young trees.  The young trees' roots have less protective chemicals and there for can be attacked without being able to fight off the beetles like the old trees.  Since the young trees are an easier target, the beetles move from the old tree to the young trees and kill millions of newly planted trees every year.

        The timber industry saw planting many young trees adjacent to old stands as a way to quickly offset the massive kills caused by the mountian pine beetle.  They however did not know that there was another predator lurking just a few feet away that was waiting for a such an easy target.  Not only are all the old trees still being killed by mountain pine beetle, but all the young ones are being killed by the Warren Root Collar beetle and their numbers have exploded due to the millions of young pines planted near older ones.  Trying to save the future actually may have destroyed it if a solution is not found quickly.  steps have been taken to clear land of all remaining old pines before young trees are planted so there will be less chance that beetles can get to the young trees. 

      just goes to show that before you patch a hole, make sure you arent making an even bigger one in the process.  the photo is a little hazy but this is what a mountian pine beetle looks like, rather small to cause such a big problem

sex in the woods

Thats right, we are going to talk about how trees reproduce and I know you might have been expecting something else from the title. But over the years I have learned that trees may not be the most exciting topic in the world and that you have to trick people into listening to you sometimes so while you are here you should read.
    An article in the Journal of Applied Ecology caught my attention this morning because it was talking about tree reproduction and diversity is being limited due to development into rural areas.  The problem is that a large majority of trees fertilize by either wind blowing pollen or rain water splashing it around and by building and cutting forest land into many sections, people are killing the genetic diversity of the forest.  Wind can't blow pollen for miles and rain water certainly can't get it that far so trees are mating with fewer of their own kind.  This may not seem like a big issue, but if only one tree fertilizes another, the genetics of all the seeds are absolutely the same. This means that they all have the same weaknesses and can be wiped out in one swoop leaving the forest barren.  The more holes that humans poke in the forest, the greater the number of trees that lose genetic diversity, the greater the chance of a lot of them dying off when one disease or insect attacks.  This would mean that wood production would go down and a lot of the stuff you use has some wood in it.  If you brushed your teeth this morning, there was a little bit of wood in your toothpaste and if you drove to school this morning, there was wood in your tires and most likely in the plastic on your dash.  While not the wood that you and I most often think about, those things are made up of the many components of wood such as cellouse and lignin.  Just a little bit to think about.
    I have greatly summerized the article to make it reasonable to understand, but there is an issue here, because genetic diversity plays a big role in many species survival. Without, the entire species can be affected by the same pressures and die off.  I used to have a teacher that loved to say the stuff we were learning was as interesting as watching pine trees have sex, but in reality this stuff is pretty interesting because America would not be the country it is today without its' forest resources.

social network

I just got back from watching the new movie about facebook and I must say it was pretty good. I hope that he was actually that sarcastic during the depositions as the movie shows. 
  What really caught my attention was one of the twins saying they were gentleman and that gentleman don't wine or sue others for small problems.  While they totally went against this and got a lot of money, I wish that more people in the U.S. today had the viewpoint that they had at the begining of the movie,
   To many people today are looking for a quick fortune and that usually comes from suing somebody that has money.  I would see it all the time at work from people suing the power company because they knew that there were deep pockets even if the power company was not part of the issue at all.  This happens all the time with lawyers looking for the richest organizations to sue even when they are not closely related to problem.  Not that any of that matters though, because the lawyers want a jury trial and as soon as that happens the plaintiff gets all of the pathos because most people see corporations as greedy and bad.  So the company loses the suit thanks to the modern day robin hoods that think they are stealing from the rich to give to the poor when in reality they are just stealing to give to the lazy.

in reality, Robin Hood was a criminal too that should have been hanged