Forest Change and Mycorrhizae Paper Published!

Mycorrhizal paper.pdf

Download PDF • 3.35MB

Press Release - Research Implications for TN State Forest Managment

Tennessee's oak and hickory forests on the Cumberland Plateau are undergoing a significant shift in composition. Nearly fifty years of data from the region show that oak and hickory regeneration has declined. Their seedlings and saplings are increasingly rare, while fast-growing species like red maple are filling the forest floor.  A new study by researchers at Tennessee State University and the University of the South identifies a key reason: oaks depend on a hidden underground network of fungi (mycorrhizae) in the soil to get established, and that network is being steadily undermined as the forest changes. When Tennessee State forests are clearcut, those fungal networks are destroyed, the soil conditions that oaks need are disrupted, and species like red maple which can resprout aggressively from stumps, surge back and dominate the recovering forest. In other words, clearcutting is accelerating exactly the compositional shift that is already underway, favoring the species that are already filling the gaps left by declining oak and hickory regeneration. The researchers conclude that once these underground soil communities have been reorganized, restoring oak forests becomes extremely difficult.  This is no single management action is enough to reverse it. For Tennessee's forest managers, this is a serious warning: continuing to clearcut plateau forests is not a sustainable harvest strategy, it is a one-way door toward a fundamentally different forest type dominated by species of lower ecological and economic value than the oaks they replace.