Crowding, Climate Change, and the Case for Social Distancing Among Trees

upstart writes:

Crowding, climate change, and the case for social distancing among trees:

For many, an ideal forest is one that looks the same as it did before European colonizers arrived. [...] Managers need to consider new strategies for building resilient forests, according to Tucker Furniss and Jim Lutz, from Utah State University's Department of Wildland Resources in the S.J. & Jessie E. Quinney College of Natural Resources.

[...] Recreating historical conditions has been a key strategy for restoration efforts, but today's novel conditions require different strategies. Specifically, the research shows that lower crowding for trees can increase chances of survival after fire. Results from two long-term studies (covering 23 years and more than 50,000 individual trees) show that chances for long-term tree survival increased when trees had more space, by reducing competition and helping trees recover from fire more quickly.

Over the years, the team performed tens of thousands of post-mortems on dead trees in the Sierra Nevada mountains to identify the cause of demise. They analyzed data and found that in crowded forests, trees were less tolerant of fire damage, and were more susceptible to post-fire bark beetle attack. In more open forests, though, trees could tolerate higher levels of fire damage, even when fire burned during extreme drought. [...] Alleviating the stress that occurs when close neighbors compete for limited water resources lets trees use sap to fend off beetle attacks, and it helps them heal after fire.

Read more of this story at SoylentNews.