Bob Perschel could be described as an activist, a forester and a leader in his field, but what stands out most about him is his passion for the mission. Brought on as executive director of the New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) in early 2012, Perschel wasted no time in putting in motion a landmark report that not only describes a remarkable vision for sustainability as it relates to forests — calling for New England to preserve 30 million acres by 2060 — but also charts a course to achieve it. The report marks a culmination of the decades that Perschel has worked as a new breed of forester, one who helped shape a ground-breaking manifesto of land ethics to prescribe a different kind of relationship with forests — a relationship in which the forests are valued for their inherent worth apart from human needs.

It’s an idea that stretches back to Perschel’s time with the Forest Guild, of which he was a founding member. “Our belief was that the forests have intrinsic value — that it’s not all about us humans. And that was a switch. The guild set out the concept that if you’re an employee of someone that is asking you to do what you think is the wrong thing to the forest, your obligation is to the forest and you should disassociate from the employer. In the profession it’s very controversial. We took a stand. We work for the forest.”

But as devoted as he is to the forest, Perschel’s path to this work wasn’t a straight one. After graduating from Yale with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, he got a job at IBM, figuring he would work for a while, save some money, then go to law or business school. But along the way, he got the suspicion that his path in life wasn’t meant to follow that particular trail. He says, “I went out to sit under a tree and thought — now what do you really want to do? This is where I want to be, out here, but — how do you do that?” It was then that he made a turn. He decided to go back to school — Yale School of Forestry.

“I didn’t go there to be a forester,” says Perschel. “I had other ideas — like be an environmental planner. But I started taking forestry courses and that’s when it hit me that this is a natural system that’s intact, that also yields benefits for people. And we can help people know how to best manage it — keep it intact and also get the benefits. That’s what really hooked me.”

And many would say the forestry industry in New England is lucky he was hooked. “We needed a spark plug for the board and fellow staff,” says Tim Ingraham, president of the board. “And that has been Bob.”

With Perschel at the helm, NEFF’s vision is to keep forests as forests, accessible to the public and an active training ground for foresters learning to optimize forest yields for wood products. But there are obstacles to getting all those forests into conservation, and particularly, in actively managing them for lumber.

“The public has a problem with harvesting trees and the prospect of increasing the harvesting of trees,” says Perschel. “That’s our audience, the people who are environmentally sensitive but don’t really understand how forests fit into the equation of sustainability and what it means to their lives. The person who doesn’t want to see a tree cut but has a wooden table or floors.”

Part of working for the forest is communicating about the forest, and NEFF chooses to do that by cataloguing the benefits of trees to health, recreation and the economy. If managed as outlined in Perschel’s NEFF plan, in addition to ancillary benefits like preserving wildlife habitat, the forests will directly contribute at least $5 billion to the region’s economy each year. On top of that are the indirect benefits: improving air quality, thus reducing health care costs and crop damage that could otherwise top $700 million each year; purifying rainwater naturally, saving up to $6 billion otherwise needed to produce clean water; keeping 3.5 million metric tons of carbon out of the atmosphere by using 400 million board feet of local wood for building, as opposed to steel and concrete.

One of the central assertions is that some of the products we get out of the forest are actually better than the other alternatives that we’re using. “Our assumption is that you, our audience, wants to be sustainable, and we show you how regional forests and wood products can help you lead a sustainable life. We can’t demand the products and have them imported from someplace that we don’t know, or instead of making the table out of wood, make it out of steel and never think about the impact on the environment,” says Perschel.
“The best choice, we think people will agree, is to do it in our region, on your watch, sustainably under your eyes, with your input. You’ll have some assurance that it is better than the alternatives.”

Lea Sloan writes from Washington, D.C. and is American Forests’ vice president of communications.

The post A New Breed of Forester appeared first on American Forests.

In the October 1945 issue of American Forests, in an article titled, “Woodman, Spare That Wolf Tree,” Charles Elliott writes, “…these ugly wolf trees, these snags, these trees classified as worthless space fillers are valuable wildlife units in the vast stretch of North American woodland.”

Elliott, contrary to popular sentiment at the time, was spot on. And nearly 70 years later, we’re due to revisit the wolf tree.

High above the shores of Lake Champlain, I trace a stone wall through a Vermont forest. Where the wall ends, I continue following a faint field line — where a hedgerow once ran — through sugar maple, basswood and eastern hemlock. At its end, I find the day’s first specimen: a huge white oak with a girth of over 15 feet and branches spreading into surrounding trees.

I’ve been hunting wolves for nearly a decade. Not four-legged wolves, but wolf trees in the eastern forest. Growing up as a forest rambler, and today as a practicing ecologist, I have always been lured to large, old trees, especially those in a forest setting.

This particular sweep of Vermont forest has a dozen of them: sugar maples, shagbark hickories and a number of massive white oaks. The white oak I encounter today, which I estimate to be approximately 300 years old, is the largest of them.

Happening upon such a gnarled, old tree, one cannot resist being pulled in. It is charismatic and animated. Its limbs reach wide, like arms. These are the trees of childhood imagination, the trees of fairy tales and folklore. These are the trees of sprites and gnomes and enchanted woodlands. Wolf trees are our Ents.

Wolf trees are also the storybooks of American history.

HISTORY OF THE WOLF TREE

Arriving on the shores of North America, early European settlers and colonists encountered the wooded wilderness of the eastern deciduous forest. As agriculturalists and pastoralists, the forested landscape was unsuited to their land-use practices; it was an impenetrable fortress harboring fearsome beasts — not a place for cows and sheep and fields of barley.

But by axe and animal, colonists carved settlements out of the forest. They cut trees to build farms and villages, let livestock loose to browse forests into fields. Domestic animals were, perhaps, more effective at clearing land than axe-wielding humans. Within a few years of woodland grazing by cows, sheep, hogs and horses, the groundcover and understory trees would be gone, leaving an open woodland. With neighborly competition removed, the remaining trees were free to spread their branches far and wide.

By default or by decision, however, some trees remained in the pastures. On his walks around Concord, Mass., in 1860, Henry David Thoreau noted this process, somewhat anthropomorphically, in his journal, “ … pasture oaks are commonly the survivors or relics of old oak woods … as an old oak wood is very gradually thinned out, it becomes open, grassy, and park-like … This final arrangement is in obedience to the demand of the cow. She says, looking at the oak woods: ‘Your tender twigs are good, but grass is better. Give me at intervals for shade and shelter in storms, and let the grass grow far and wide between them.’”

But by the late 1800s and through the 1900s, the era of small-scale livestock farming as a viable living was sliding by. Northeastern farmers moved west to less rocky, more fertile ground. Later, small farms were supplanted by larger operations and economies of scale. Farms went under. Pastures were abandoned. And the remarkably resilient forest began its return.

With the end of pastures we mark the beginning of wolf trees. As the art and science of forestry grew with the emerging forest, early foresters saw old shade trees as hindering, not helping, their bottom line. They suggested, as so many forestry books do, the spreading trees were like wolves, preying on forest resources and preventing the growth of smaller, marketable timber trees. Like wolves, they advised, pasture trees in the forest should be culled.

Foresters preferred tidy, well-managed timberlands and loathed the gnarled, snaking wolf trees for their unmarketable form. Charles Elliott summarizes this sentiment, writing that all the forestry books of the day treat the wolf tree as “a forest ulcer,” whose “elimination is a strict principle of forest management.” Elliott admits to having written such a book himself, but his outlook had changed as he came to see the importance of wolf trees to the eastern forests. “Woodman, Spare That Wolf Tree” marked his transition to an advocate for these forest giants.

Though Elliott’s is the earliest voice I have found that speaks positively of wolf trees, over the past couple of decades, sentiment toward wolf trees has started to change. Whereas during the latter half of the 1900s, when nearly all forestry texts advised the removal of wolf trees, a review today of forestry documents targeted to the landowner from extension offices and state resource agencies shows that about half note wolf trees’ virtues. This reflects the changing nature of forest management from a singular focus on timber to something encompassing forest ecosystems, human values and wildlife.

WOLF TREES TODAY

I walk around the base of the white oak looking into the branches and among the roots. The bark texture is coarse, showing its age. The ground is covered in slabs of fallen bark from branches now dying because of shade. Three carnivore scats left at the base post an olfactory “no trespassing” sign at what is the largest tree in the forest. Scats are typical at the bases of wolf trees, more common than “posted” signs put up by people (which also tend to occur on wolf trees).

Clearly, I’m not the first person to spend time at this tree. An old flip-flop lays half buried on the ground. And four rusty tree steps screwed into the trunk lead to the first live branch. I oblige, and make my way up.

The fat, low branch greets me with the husks of acorns and a half-eaten mushroom. A squirrel has eaten here with a commanding view of the forest; horizontal branches make fine places for resting and watching. Mosses and lichens cover the limbs. On closer inspection, insects, mites, spiders and other invertebrates occupy every cavernous niche. Earlier, I counted 80 distinct spider webs on the lower six feet of a sugar maple wolf tree. In the same tree, bees zoomed in and out of a hollow, while moths covered the inner walls, waiting for nightfall.

I climb higher into the oak wishing for the balance of a cat or wings of a bird. I reach a dead branch, chipped open by woodpeckers and hollowed by rot. Collected grass, falling from a hole, reveals the remnants of a nest. I rap on it to avoid surprises. Two hairy woodpeckers descend. Looking up, two more woodpeckers hitch around large limbs.

I watch a white-breasted nuthatch corkscrew down the trunk, gleaning the mites and insects I had seen hidden among the bark. Above, vireos work the highest branches for caterpillars and larger invertebrates. Perched in the center of the tree, I am encircled by a sphere of animal activity. Seemingly everywhere, life has embraced the opportunities presented by this tree.

Wolf trees also draw mammals, though they are challenging to see. In addition to carnivore scats, the bases of trees often reveal tunnels and dens of chipmunks or other small mammals. Cavities get filled by fox squirrels. I’ve found denning porcupines, raccoons and a young bear in wolf trees. Twice I discovered denning coyotes in the hollow bases of Kentucky chinkapin oaks. And though I haven’t looked specifically for them, bats likely use the loose bark or small cavities of wolf trees too.

I, like Elliott did in his observations, have found snakes tangled up in the spreading branches of wolf trees. The reptiles were probably awaiting the return of a bird or a chipmunk. Either way, the bustle of the wolf tree makes it a good place to wait for a meal.

I size up a nearby sugar maple: straight, tall, clear. I look closely for spiders, moths, scat or birds. I see nothing. Despite that it’s a lovely forest tree with great promise to a cabinetmaker, in comparison to the wolf tree, I find it woefully uninspiring.

In the early days of my wolf tree hunting, I studied the trees more systematically. I looked for animals at wolf trees, and I looked equally as hard in surrounding, commercially mature forest trees. I then compared the two to assess whether birds and mammals use wolf trees disproportionately to other trees. They do. Wolf trees offered opportunity to more individual animals from a greater number of species for longer periods of time than did typical forest trees. For every minute birds spent foraging in a typical forest tree, they spent 20 minutes foraging in wolf trees. For singing, the ratio was 30 to one.

Wolf trees are like the forest’s town square for animals. With their larger diameter, horizontal limbs, furrowed and sloughing bark, cavities and hollows, they offer more structural complexity than tall, straight, typical forest trees. Structural features don’t generally appear on eastern deciduous trees under 100 years old. In most of the eastern forest, old pasture trees have a 100- or 200-year leg-up on the surrounding trees and thus have had time to develop the features wildlife depend on.

In many forests, the abundance of certain bird or mammal species is limited by the abundance of cavities and hollows for them to dwell in. Because of this, ecologists consider such trees keystone structures; that is, their effect on the landscape is disproportionate to their abundance. Provide the animals with an opportunity, and they will use it. Without it, they don’t appear.

WOLF TREES IN THE FUTURE

Back on the ground, I observe the old white oak with admiration. This tree saw the birth of a nation. It saw forest turn to pasture and return again. Today, the forest closes in tight around it. Sugar maples push up through the oak’s branches; I count 60 maples rising from inside the drip line of the oak. A wall of maples and other species surrounds its outer limbs like an angry posse circling, well, a wolf.

Though the threat of wolf tree culling still exists today, shade is perhaps a greater threat; trees that are not intentionally killed grow weaker as encroaching trees grow taller. I see this everywhere: Trees emerge around, through and beneath an old pasture tree. Because the old tree was shaped in full sun with a certain photosynthetic input to hold up its mass, shading forces the tree to shut down branches that no longer receive enough sun. The lower limbs on this oak, like most others, are dead. It’s hard to find a wolf tree today without senescent low limbs. In time, as neighborly competition dominates, a wolf tree’s new growth will reach up, not out.

There is a great irony here: Wolf trees have for a long time been scorned for shading emerging timber trees. But now, the reverse is true; surrounding trees are shading and killing the wolves.

The decline in wolf trees in the eastern forest corresponds with the decline in large, old trees globally. It takes a long time to grow a tree with features wildlife can use. On a human timescale, they are, essentially, a finite resource. In the eastern forest, wolf trees survive in a matrix of young trees that rarely surpass 100 years. So when the elders die, the young even-aged trees lack the complex structure of a healthy forest. But with some attention, we can slow the loss of wolf trees and preserve both wildlife habitat and our heritage.

Managing for the benefit of wolf trees is as simple as keeping the shade at bay (trees can also be trimmed and pruned to increase their longevity). In the United Kingdom, a similar phenomenon of ancient trees — called veteran trees — has attracted attention. The book Veteran Trees: A Guide for Good Management by Helen Read outlines how to manage young trees encroaching a veteran.

The same guidelines can be applied to wolf trees in the eastern forest. Encroaching trees can be thinned, ideally over several years so as not to shock the elder tree’s leaves, bark or roots. This is particularly true on southern aspects where a tree could be scorched, or on sides facing strong winds. Girdling emerging trees can work well, though falling branches and small trees can create a hazard for woodland walkers. Wildlife will appreciate the standing dead trees.

Because wolf trees are often oaks, keeping them makes good forestry sense too. Oaks in general, and white oaks in particular, are valuable timber trees that are in decline in many regions. The wolf tree has value as a seed tree, since, compared to typical forest trees, large, old trees are prolific seed producers.

I spend time at the Vermont oak writing down my observations and shooting photographs, trying to capture the history held within the tree. These are the most storied trees in the eastern forest. In their youth, they glimpsed Native American culture; in midlife, perhaps they hosted a colony of passenger pigeons. They witnessed the settling of the country as they shaded cows, sheep, people or all three. And today, as elders of the eastern forest, their legacy lies with wildlife; the birds, the bugs, the bears and all the beasts in between find opportunity in wolf trees.

The recognition that wolf trees have ecological and cultural significance is growing. Rather than labeling them as outlaws or rogues, we can celebrate their story and their important role in today’s eastern forest. Such an epiphany struck Charles Elliott 70 years ago when he said, “I take the stand as a character witness to wolf trees …  dead, dying, and decaying trees are the most interesting places in the forest.”

I regard the white oak, turn my back and set forth to find the next one. Long live the wolf tree.

Michael Gaige became fascinated with wolf trees after hundreds of old tree encounters in the eastern forest. He is a freelance conservation biologist and educator based in Saratoga Lake, N.Y.

The post Wolf Trees: Elders of the Eastern Forest appeared first on American Forests.

The old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, captured in these stunning photographs by Francois-Xavier De Ruydts, are often imagined as a sort of last frontier, a magical wilderness still untouched by human hands. In reality, these forests — home to the northern spotted owl — have our fingerprints all over them.

In the last few centuries, destructive activities such as clear-cut logging have become a threat to old-growth forests and the spotted owl. Much of what’s left of the Pacific Northwest’s old-growth forests lie on public land, managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, which allow for some timber harvesting. Despite their rich history and diverse plants and wildlife species, these forests remain targets for logging activities.

For a bird as territorial as the northern spotted owl, such habitat disturbance and fragmentation is devastating. Over the past 20 years, the owl’s population has declined by 40 percent. In June 1990, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the northern spotted owl as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act throughout its range of northern California, Oregon and Washington. Loss of old-growth habitat was cited as the primary threat.

American Forests’ battles to bring the northern spotted owl population back to health have been waged on two fronts. In Washington, we’ve submitted comments to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, weighing in on their 2012 rule designating critical habitat for the species. The public comments contributed to a final rule that set aside 9.6 million acres to help the recovery of the threatened bird.

In the field, we’re working with partners like the U.S. Forest Service to help these forests recover. In Washington’s Gifford Pinchot National Forest, we’re planting 60,000 ponderosa pine across 600 acres. In neighboring Oregon, we’re planting another 20,000 pine in Fremont-Winema National Forests.
Why do we care so much? Because it’s not just about the northern spotted owl. As with almost all battles that call out a single species as a symbol for a cause, the spotted owl is an indicator species — what we metaphorically call a canary in a coal mine. It is part of the fabric of ecosystem health. We mourn its declining numbers because it is a charismatic creature, but the decline of this owl is telling us something deeper and more disturbing about the consequences of destruction to this habitat.

Owls are often viewed as a symbol of wisdom. Let’s hope that we have the wisdom to keep these birds and their habitat around for a long time. These breathtaking images should remain a testament to the beauty and biodiversity of the Pacific Northwest — not become a memorial to it.

The post Saga of the Spotted Owl appeared first on American Forests.

The ensatina, a small salamander with shoe-button eyes and orange and brown mottling, lay very still on the forest floor. As a warm, Pacific Northwest rain fell gently on both of us, I could almost hear this animal thinking, “Here I was, perfectly happy beneath that piece of bark you just overturned. Now, what can I help you with?” Ensatinas, unlike the other terrestrial amphibian I most often encounter — the western red-backed salamander — rarely hurry off when I find them. In anthropomorphic terms, they seem very patient, almost polite. I have seen many ensatinas in my years as a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Forest Service and my admiration for a creature that lives such a different life from my own is great. These creatures’ small size belies the essential role they play in the complex system of the forest — a system that we all depend on. When I finally leave and replace the bark roof over the salamander, it’s as if there is the faintest of whispers: Thank you.

LIFE UNDERGROUND

Ensatinas (Ensatina eschsholtzii) are about half the length of a pencil when full-grown and completely terrestrial. They leave their underground worlds only on warm, moist days and nights, when they come to the surface to take refuge from the sodden ground under pieces of bark. Apart from their large eyes, they are easily identified by bright, yellow markings on the tops of their legs and a slight constriction at the base of their tails. “Ensatina,” a Latin word meaning “sword-like” refers to the way the tail is held straight and displayed to predators. They are a lungless salamander, meaning that they absorb oxygen solely through their skin. This makes them extremely sensitive to changes in air temperature and humidity. However, they also seem to be a very adaptable species. I have observed them in older forests, younger forests and even sometimes on the edges of clear-cuts. The species also has an extensive geographic range, occurring along the west coast of North America, from Baja California in Mexico to southern British Columbia in Canada.

Because ensatinas live only on land, they do not lay their eggs in water as some salamanders do. Instead, after an elaborate dance between the male and female that signals the beginning of the breeding cycle, the male will deposit a packet of sperm, known as a “spermatophore,” on the forest floor. The female then takes the packet into her cloaca and the sperm moves from this transport vessel into a part of her body called the spermatheca. When she decides that conditions are favorable, generally in the spring, the sperm is released inside her body and she will deposit her fertilized eggs in rotten logs, underground burrows or any location that is protected and contains adequate moisture. The new mother then guards the eggs throughout the summer until they hatch in August or September.

For biologists, the life of the ensatina is fascinating. For the average person, it may be less so. If I tried to describe this subterranean world at a social gathering, I would likely encounter polite boredom. If I tried to use the word spermatophore in general conversation, I would definitely regret it. I can hear people’s questions already. What have ensatina salamanders to do with me? What does it matter if they live in the forest or they don’t live in the forest? In short, who cares? Conserving the unusual, little-known species and making its presence relevant in the world of people can be a terrific challenge. Yet, there is reason to care. If I have learned one thing, it is this: Everything is connected. Every living creature affects, and is affected by, every other living creature.

In the mid-1970s, studies conducted in New Hampshire determined that land-dwelling salamanders existed in tremendous numbers in eastern forests. In one hectare — an area the size of a football field — approximately 2,950 salamanders were counted. This biomass — that is, the total weight of all of the salamanders — was double that of birds during the breeding season and equal to that of small mammals year-round. Most of these salamanders were the eastern red-backed, a cousin of the western species I so often spot. In another study in New York, it was found that the eastern red-backed salamander directly influenced the community of invertebrates that consume leaf litter. In essence, the salamanders were a kind of super predator on animals like beetles. Because ensatinas are the most common terrestrial salamander in western coastal forests, is it possible that they fulfill the same role? And if so, what is the significance of such an ecological job? These questions were waiting for someone to answer them.

BEST MAN FOR THE JOB

Michael Best is a research scientist who has been studying ensatinas in northern California since 2006. His work has taken him far from his childhood home of Queens, N.Y., where growing up in an urban environment didn’t deter his inherent interest in the natural world. As a child, Best explored vacant city lots, capturing insects and observing small animals. When only six years old, he started a “bug club.” One accomplishment of this club included breeding praying mantises and populating one of the vacant lots with them. Still, amphibians and reptiles, even more than bugs, became the animals that captured his imagination.

“The most significant salamander moment for me as a youth,” Best recalls, “was discovering the adorable, solitary tiny red efts (juvenile eastern newts) wandering through the forest, completely unafraid due to their deadly toxins.”

Likewise, witnessing the migration of thousands of spotted salamanders and spring peepers (small chorus frogs), as well as observing a snapping turtle digging her nest in the Adirondacks propelled Best toward a bachelor’s degree in conservation biology at State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. After his undergraduate work, he read a 2004 scientific review by Robert Davic and Hartwell Welsh, two well-known herpetologists. “On the Ecological Roles of Salamanders” explained the abundance of salamanders in forest ecosystems and how these animals function as regulators of food webs, species diversity and ecosystem processes. However, despite much being known about these amphibians, there were still many questions. The mystery of how western forest salamanders affect invertebrate densities gave rise to a master’s project for Best. He soon found himself in the King Mountain Range in southern Humboldt County, less than 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean, peering into the little-known world of the ensatina.

Best’s study area, shielded from maritime influence by a rugged landscape known as the Lost Coast, is dominated by a Mediterranean weather pattern. The cool, very wet winters are perfect for the ensatina who, being lungless, requires damp environments to breathe through its skin. During the dry summers, ensatinas take refuge underground. The forest here is mixed hardwood and conifer and includes such species as Douglas-fir, tanoak and madrone. Owing to private ownership that has allowed the trees to grow for many decades, the forest floor is largely open. There is no herbaceous layer of ferns and herbs except for tree seedlings and a shrub component that includes only huckleberry bushes. The leaves of the deciduous tanoaks and madrones accumulate every year in deep, wide swaths on the ground, eventually curling and drying into brittle crackling forms.

SOLVING THE MYSTERY

The project began with Best building and transporting 12 “salamander housing units” to the study area. These were walls constructed from sheet metal sections a foot tall, inserted into the ground to enclose a 100 square-foot area of the forest floor. This area was then further divided by interior walls, creating four salamander plots. Best made sure each contained slabs of Douglasfir as cover for the animals.

He then removed all salamanders from half of the plots, while the other half had just one adult male ensatina each. “We used male ensatinas,” Best explains, “because it was possible that nesting females could exhibit specific behavior attributes that would have biased our results. After laying eggs, females might stay underground longer and feed less, or they might consume only certain kinds of invertebrates and not others. We wanted to be careful not to introduce that kind of bias.”

Best had constructed short, overhanging edges on the tops of the structure walls to prevent escape by the study salamanders, as well as immigration by other salamanders. However, in the first few weeks after setting up, he still encountered baby ensatinas and California slender salamanders that had emerged from the leaf litter. These extra animals were then carried to areas outside of the study. Though the treatment salamanders weren’t marked, Best could identify them by their length and weight, which he had previously measured.

Finally, into each plot went three bags of forest leaf litter weighing exactly three grams each. Invertebrates consume leaf litter, and with that consumption, carbon is released into the atmosphere. These invertebrates will keep eating until something stops them — say, a hungry salamander that sees them as a meal. Since fresh, dry leaf litter is 50 percent carbon by weight, the amount of leaf litter weighed later in the study would reflect changes in the amount of carbon remaining on the forest floor in the plots. Best wanted to measure the difference between the plots in which some of the invertebrates were being eaten and those in which they faced no threats, leaving their leaf litter-eating mission unchecked.

With the plots now ready, Best began his study by creating a grid pattern of 100 points, then randomly selected five points for invertebrate sampling. Firmly inserting a soup can with both ends removed through the leaf litter down to mineral soil, he extracted cores full of different species of insects. Samples were taken each month in each plot for four months. In the first year of the study, Best documented a staggering 14,000 individual invertebrates from the plots, while in the second year — owing to early spring rains and an increase in soil moisture — he found almost 33,000. Since he had sampled only five of the 100 points in each plot, “this number,” he says, “is conservatively less than five percent of the invertebrates actually on the plots in each year.”

STEWARDS OF THE FOREST

Similar to earlier results obtained in the east, Best found that ensatina salamanders have enormous effects on their environment. Only a month into the study, the experimental plots that had a salamander showed a marked decrease in the number of large invertebrate leaf-litter shredders, such as beetles and fly larvae. This in turn resulted in 13 percent more leaf litter remaining in these plots than in the plots with no salamanders, which meant that more carbon continued to be stored in the ecosystem. Conversely, plots without salamanders had more invertebrates, which consumed the leaf litter, resulting in the release of carbon into the atmosphere. The ensatina’s removal of these large and competitive shredders also opened up food resources for tiny grazers, such as mites and barklice. These animals, which are crucial in the consumption of fungi and bacteria, could then increase in numbers.

Having ensatina salamanders doing their job seems to clearly mean more leaf litter is retained on the forest floor, which means less carbon is released into the atmosphere. This retained material is then available for another forest process called humification. In contrast to decomposition, which is about decay, humification involves the creation of humus, the rich, organic matter that is the basis for all life in the forest. “Each process is always happening simultaneously,” explains Best, “but the ratio of each to the other may increase or decrease based on weather patterns and trophic dynamics.” Measuring humification is difficult, so Best does not know to what extent this process is happening, but he can definitively say that an ensatina salamander’s presence in his study plots resulted in a smaller proportion of leaves being converted into carbon dioxide, thus making this organic material available for the creation of humus.

In a perfect world, every species would be valued and given ample space to simply be without needing to justify its existence. With so many creatures whose function we still don’t understand, it seems prudent to make no such judgments about which are, or are not, important. Yet, we don’t live in a perfect world, and judgments, acknowledged or not, are made every day. Even the tendency for humans to conserve animals most like ourselves doesn’t always hold true. Certain species, coyotes and crows for example, with their tremendous adaptive capabilities, intelligence and devotion to family (characteristics all much admired in the human realm), often inspire our greatest wrath. Yet, prudent thinking and sound research show again and again the wisdom of Aldo Leopold’s words about maintaining all the pieces of an ecosystem: A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. This is a moral and practical philosophy. Michael Best believes that woodland salamanders are the stewards of the forests, silently channeling invertebrate biomass into energy and maintaining productive ecosystems. Even if the ensatina’s shoebutton eyes, interesting courtship rituals or strange life underground aren’t enough to pique someone’s attention, the animal’s effect on the storage of carbon in a world whose atmosphere is already overloaded with it should be.

Betsy L. Howell is a wildlife biologist who has worked for the U.S. Forest Service for 20 years.

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It’s no exaggeration to say that society as we know it is dependent on trees. For centuries, humans have harvested trees for a wide variety of uses. From our books to the wooden bookshelf they sit on, fruits, nuts, lumber, paper and maple syrup, forest products are all around us. And it’s not just the products we can see. Cellulose, tiny fibers that make up wood, is found in dinnerware, cellophane and even rocket fuel.

Now, 21st century researchers are gleaning a new material from trees: Nanocellulose, cellulose broken down to the nano-scale. These tiny particles come in two structures: short, rigid nanocrystal rods and longer, flexible, spaghetti-like nanofibrils. Visualizing the miniscule scale of this material takes some work of the imagination. Take a strand of your hair between your fingers. Depending on your hair type, this single strand might be anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000 nanometers wide. Now imagine a structure just six nanometers wide — approximately .007 percent of a strand of hair. That is the width of one nanocrystal rod or nanofibril. Lined up side by side, more than 4 million of these could fit in a single inch.

THE AMAZING NANOCELLULOSE PARTICLE

Don’t let their size fool you. These tiny particles pack in powerful properties. Nanocellulose is strong and lightweight. The super-strength of cellulose nanocrystals and fibrils is “strength in the order of Kevlar,” says Alan Rudie, supervisory research chemist at the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisc. Its unique properties make it a prime candidate for improving end-products as diverse as vehicles, sidewalks and paint.

For example, cellulose does not absorb light, so cellulosic nanomaterials can be made into clear films or composites such as impact-resistant windows. Rudie has had discussions with a well-known logging equipment supplier about the possibility of developing these windows for logging vehicle windshields, which are often assaulted by rocks kicked up by cutting blades. “ come at their cab windows with almost ballistic speeds,” Rudie says.

Loggers aren’t the only ones for whom nanocellulose could improve life behind the wheel. Other companies see the potential for lightweight, tree-harvested nanomaterial in steel or even foam padding. Cellulosic nanomaterials could be substituted in just about anything that contains fibers. Such lighter, better-reinforcing materials in cars would help improve fuel economy and reduce carbon emissions.

Skipping the car trip to get around on your own two feet? The sidewalks of the future could contain nanocellulose too; it can be used as a plasticizer and reinforcing material in cement.

Nanocellulose can also help modify the viscosity of paints, cosmetics and even pancake syrup, explains Robert Moon, materials research engineer at the U.S. Forest Service. In the case of paint, nanocellulose’s distinct properties could help paint to go on smoothly and then set with less dripping.

Scientists have even invented new products using nanocellulose: Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison created a water-repelling aerogel, or special sponge-like foam, that floats on water and soaks up oil — a product that could be useful for oil spill clean-ups and more, explains researcher and professor of biomedical engineering Shaoqin Gong of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery in Madison, Wisc. The oil-soaked aerogel can even be squeezed out and reused.

And what if one day, these tiny particles could even help heal our bodies? Researchers are studying how nanocellulose could help form blood vessels and new bone.

PRIMED FOR SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION

As scientists continue to learn how to best generate cellulosic nanomaterial, they’re also figuring out how to produce it more efficiently and cost-effectively.

“One of the big advantages of cellulose as a nanomaterial is that it’s abundant and renewable,” says Michael Goergen, director of P3Nano, the new public-private partnership between the U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities. “Reducing the expense of producing nanomaterial will make it more attractive in the marketplace overall.”

It’s not just expense that can be reduced, but also waste. “The other potential advantage of nanocellulose is that you don’t need to have the best wood,” Moon says, and tree species doesn’t matter. So while a lumber company wants prime wood from the tree’s core, nanocellulose can come from branches, wood chips or other parts of the wood waste stream. “These particles are so small, we can get them from the less desirable wood,” he says. “In that way, we can get more from every single tree.” If these technologies advance, a budding nanocellulose industry could tie in to the current infrastructure of pulp, paper, bio-fuel or other forest-centric industries. So, as other products are produced, cellulose nanoparticles can be one type of material that’s extracted.

And as a biodegradable resource, nanocellulose won’t persist forever in the environment or landfills. “We believe that it’s going to be sustainable, recyclable, compostable,” Rudie says.

“That might be good for products such as electronics,” says Moon, “where we produce a lot of plastic that takes a long time to degrade. By using nanocellulose, we’re putting a greener component within the plastic itself.” Similarly, nanocellulose might help to lessen the impact of popular disposable products such as coffee cups. Using polymers that contain nanocellulose would help the product to biodegrade.

And the benefits of adding nanocellulose to products go beyond the environmental. Once this new technology catches on, a nanocellulose industry could have a $600 billion worldwide impact by 2020, according to U.S. Forest Service estimates.

Companies and researchers are currently trying to get the material to the point of commercialization for use in practical products. Other nanomaterials are already being used in commercial products. If you have odor-absorbing socks, there might be nanosilver in them, for example. Nanosilver is also used in some medical products today.

To help advance nanocellulose commercialization, the Forest Products Laboratory opened up a new $1.7 million nanocellulose pilot plant in 2012 — the first of its kind in the U.S. The partnership will also help speed the development of the first U.S. commercial facility for producing nanocellulose. In addition, the new P3Nano partnership has dedicated some $3 million to funding nanocellulose research by individuals, universities, companies and other research groups.

The future is here. And it’s tiny.

Carrie Madren is a freelance writer based in northern Virginia. www.carriemadren.com

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In almost every sweep of woodland, there is a certain type of tree that foresters call a “wolf” tree. Specifically, this example of avaricious flora is a side-crowned perennial, towering over and shading out the other trees of the forest. More generally, it is any member of a sylvan aggregation that takes up space which the Maker has ostensibly allotted to one or more of the vigorous, valuable individuals in the forest.

To an eye quick to appraise timber values, or a hand that wields an uncompromising ax in weeding out worthless trees, the wolf tree is a forest ulcer. Its elimination is a strict principle of forest management.

All my forestry books say that! A book I once wrote makes that claim. Perhaps not in those exact words, but that is the general idea. This is not the first time I have ever had to do a reluctant “about-face” and deny an irrevocable truth.

I take the stand as a character witness for wolf trees.

I know a tree that towers on the edge of a wood. Long years ago, when I first met it, this sylvan beauty was erect and graceful, and as pretty as a young girl blossoming into womanhood. Today the ravages of the years show in the seams of its limbs. Its shoulders, slightly stooped, have been worn thin by nature’s hardest masters and most worthy friends—the sun, the wind and the rain.

That tree has lived! It is living yet, but the foliage in its crown has dwindled to a handful of leaves and many of its branches stand withered in the evening twilight. But the march of life and death across the horizon of its existence, the tiny, budding embryos it has nurtured in its bosom, the variety of creatures it has sheltered from cold and storm, are greater in number than any other tree in the forest can boast.

Its lower limbs are within reach of the ground, and I averaged once a week climbing it when I was a boy.

The first spring I noticed the tree, a downy woodpecker had drilled a home into one of its upright limbs. I climbed the trunk to have a better look and half-way to the top found a sheltered hollow, where Boreas or one of his brothers had twisted out a huge limb in the years past.

What a marvelous story the claw and talon marks on the rim of that hollow would have made! The fragment of a gray down feather clung close under a protruding scale of bark. There was a brown splotch which might or might not have been blood. The lip of the hole was worn smooth by furred and feathered bodies sliding across it, and by sharpened claws.

For several years after my discovery, I supervised that old tree in the raising of its families of the wild. I remember squirrels and screech owls and opossums. The first family of starlings in that neighborhood drove away all covetousness of prospective tenants as they noisily took possession. Those original settler starlings have multiplied into a population of thousands.

Once a bluebird timidly selected the site. A marauding black snake drove her away and swallowed the clutch of eggs. I found the snake stretched on a limb above the nest with his belly full of the tiny blue eggs in which the mother bird and I had taken so much pride. The parent birds hovered pathetically around. In my anger I hit at the snake and lost my balance on the precarious perch. The snake escaped. I wore my arm in a sling for days.

The foresters call that tree a wolf, unfit to carry its burden in the life of the forest.

Dead and dying trees have a definite place in the ecology of the woods. Without them, many species of wildlife would soon vanish. A recent survey by one of the state agencies proved conclusively that the limiting factor in the raccoon population was the number of den trees available.

Many species of birds and animals use the hollows in trees as homes or as shelters against the elements. Mice, chipmunks and squirrels store them full of acorns and other food against the long winter months when seasonal pro-visions are as scarce as was a wartime T -bone. Flying squirrels make their homes in the crevices and hollows.

I remember a campfire one night in a group of trees, which the lumbermen had rejected as unfit for the saw. More than a dozen-of the little gliding mammals were playing in the woods that night. They would scamper to the top of a tree beyond the fire, glide in a quick silvery arc over the bright flames and flap against one of the tree trunks on the other side. We could hear the miniature claws scraping against the bark as they climbed to the top of that particular tree and, after a moment, see them zip across the fire again.

The different kinds of mammals that make their homes in hollow trees, however, are few by comparison with the numerous species of birds which breed and live in these forest shelters. And birds, we learned in lesson one, are man’s best friends in the out-of-doors.

The nuthatches are one group which use the wolf trees of the forest. All species of nuthatches are valuable to man for the multitude of insects they consume.

The brownheaded nuthatch will dig his home out of a rotten limb and lay his eggs on a flat nest of such fluffy materials as wool, pine seed wings and soft, shredded bark. The red-breasted nuthatch smears pitch around the entrance to his home. The American bird is close kin to the European red-breasted nuthatch, which seals his wife in with pitch during the period she is incubating their eggs. He leaves a tiny hole in the resin door, through which he passes food and water during the three weeks she is on duty.

The wood duck selects a large wood-pecker hole or tree cavity for a nesting site. Unlike most other ducks, mamma wood duck lays her eggs many feet above the water. Naturalists have disagreed since the time of Linnaeus about how the wood ducklings get from the nest into the water. Some say the mother duck transports them through the air on her back or in her bill. Others say she pushes them out of the nest and they drift as gently as a down feather to the surface of the pond or stream if it happens to be below. There are other versions, too, which may or may not be verified.

Woodpeckers are almost universally tree dwellers. In making their homes, some of the larger woodpeckers carve them out of living trunks of the trees. Others choose dead limbs or snags of the forest. They explore the surrounding dead or decaying wood for insect larvae or grubs, their principal source of food. They help protect the living forest tree, those growing into valuable lumber, crossties and veneer wood, from the ravages of forest insects. The number of woodpecker families in a forest is necessarily limited to the number of dead snags and limbs.

Two more consumers of forest insect are the bluebird and purple martin, which make their homes in abandoned woodpecker holes. These two birds are familiar spring and summer visitors to every farm boy, where the wolf trees have been left to attract them.

While the chimney swift makes the most of civilization by using chimneys and abandoned smoke stacks in which to build his nest, in the wilderness he selects the hollow trunks of trees and sometimes the protected surface of perpendicular rock ledges. This mite of a bird, shaped like an arrow’s head in flight, builds his nest out of sticks on the inside surface of a hollow tree or chimney. He puts the sticks together with a glue made from the saliva out of his own mouth.

The crested flycatcher is another flying insect exterminator that lives in a tree hollow made and vacated by some former tenant. This superstitious bird makes a cozy nest in the cavity and lines it with snake skin, usually the cast-off skin of some reptile. Naturalists have never determined whether this is a throwback to some prehistoric past, or whether the snake skin is deliberately woven into the nest to frighten away intruders.

These are only a few of the birds and animals which live in the hollows of trees in the woods. The dead, dying and decaying trees are the most interesting places in the forest. Even the wasps and hornets, both eaters of flies and gnats, dig out decayed wood and chew it into the pulp with which they make their papery nests. Many Insect species crawl into holes and crevices to spend the winter months.

Those who know its place in the ecology of the forest will agree with me that these ugly wolf trees, these snags, these trees classified as worthless space fillers are valuable wildlife units in the vast stretch of North American woodland.

What’s become of wolf trees today? Conservation biologist Michael Gaige revisits these elders of the eastern forest in the Fall 2014 issue of American Forests, coming online October 29th.

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Why did you choose to go into forest ecology?

You could say a not-so-little bird told me to do it! For my doctoral research, I was in Steve Rothstein’s lab in avian biology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, investigating Clark’s nutcracker behavioral ecology in the eastern Sierra Nevada. After graduate school, I started asking questions that involved studies in forest ecology to understand how the nutcracker influenced the biology and ecology of whitebark pine.

Why high elevation forest communities? This came from a love of the high mountains from childhood and college experiences. Why nutcrackers and pines? Serendipity: As a Master’s student at UCLA, I was backpacking in the Sierra Nevada. As we rested under a whitebark pine, a bird flew in and began tearing apart the pine cones. I was fascinated, having just had an ornithology course. At UCLA, I looked into the literature and discovered that little was known about the Clark’s nutcracker.

What is your favorite aspect or favorite part of your field?

First of all, learning and understanding — the discovery process — about forest communities is what keeps me going. In the Clark’s nutcracker-white pine interaction, there have been many very exciting moments in the lab and field. But, the over-arching pleasure to me is being in these high elevation and treeline forests. It’s hard to explain, but I feel they are my “habitat.”

What was the most difficult moment or encounter that you’ve experienced in pursuit of your work?

There have been challenges connected with many projects, including having grizzly bears in our study areas and experiencing extreme weather, but having my 2-year-old son in the field with me and my students during a Yellowstone post-fire project was probably the most difficult, logistically.

What do you think the biggest issue facing forest health is today?

The obvious answer is the uncertain future our forests face with climate change. But more challenging and potentially as — or more — damaging is the influx of exotic pests and pathogens, which are damaging our forests at a rapid pace. I study the ecological effects of white pine blister rust, caused by a pathogen introduced more than a century ago, and the effects are absolutely devastating for a group of white pines — commercially and ecologically. Blister rust is not an isolated case — chestnut blight, Dutch elm disease, sudden oak death and pests like emerald ash borer and the hemlock wooly adelgid all threaten our forests.

Who is your favorite fictional scientist and why?

I have several literary favorites, including Sherlock Holmes, who approached his investigations with deductive reasoning. I also relate to the character Dr. Ellie Arroway, played by Jodie Foster in Contact, a movie about obtaining first proof of intelligent extra-terrestrial life, and to the characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation when they were problem-solving under the leadership of Patrick Stewart’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

If you weren’t a scientist, what would you be? Why?

If I weren’t scientist I probably would have become an artist or gone into creative writing. The artist part of me loves where I do my research. These were interests and skills I had cultivated earlier in my life.

Where is your favorite spot to experience nature and why?

There have some places that were extremely special — almost “magic” in a way. But time and too many visitors have changed the dynamic. For example, I remember Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park while growing up — there were many fewer people and it was wilder. Since then, I have been privileged to work in a number of extraordinary but different places, especially in the Rocky Mountains ranging from the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona north to Willmore Wilderness Park in Canada. Willmore, by the way, is largely undisturbed and absolutely spectacular. I thank my Canadian colleagues for opportunities to work there.

To learn more about the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation, visit whitebarkfound.org.

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