Climate insanity determines that existing conifers are preferable to global warming-induced maple trees.
I’m sorry, is there a “toxic” metal problem in forests?
The media release is below.
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Climate change prompts makeover of New England’s forests, Dartmouth study finds
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
HANOVER, N.H. – Forest soils across New England will store fewer nutrients and metals – some beneficial, some harmful — as climate change prompts maples and other deciduous trees to replace the region’s iconic evergreen conifers, a Dartmouth College study finds.
The study appears in the journal Plant and Soil. A PDF is available on request.
“Based upon our findings, we conclude that a shift from coniferous to deciduous vegetation could decrease the accumulation and retention of major metals,” says lead author Justin Richardson, who conducted the research as part of his doctorate from Dartmouth’s Department of Earth Sciences. “Our results can help forest managers and biogeochemists assess the future impact of changing vegetation type on plant-essential and pollutant metal cycling in forests across the region.”
Under various climate and land-use scenarios, coniferous stands are expected to lose 71 percent to 100 percent of their current range to deciduous stands across New England by 2085, particularly in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, due to increased temperature and precipitation and changes in timber harvesting. Deciduous trees have very different ecological and physical characteristics than conifers, so this switch could impact how they cycle nutrients and store toxic metals in their underlying soil.
The Dartmouth researchers studied eight adjacent deciduous and coniferous forest stands in Vermont’s Green Mountains and New Hampshire’s White Mountains. They found that deciduous trees cycle nutrients in their litter layer at a faster rate than conifers, but potentially toxic metal cycling was not different between conifers and deciduous trees. Specifically, coniferous soils had 30 percent to 50 percent less calcium, potassium, magnesium, manganese and zinc than deciduous stands, while metal concentrations also were smaller in coniferous needles than deciduous leaves. Additionally, the results suggest coniferous soils retain calcium, cadmium, copper, potassium, magnesium and manganese 40 percent to 200 percent longer than deciduous soils. These results emphasize that coniferous stands cycle metals at a slower rate than deciduous stands.
“As significant alterations to ecosystems resulting from global change become more likely, environmental scientists and the general public need to appreciate some of the potential outcomes,” says senior author Andrew Friedland (http://envs.dartmouth.edu/people/andrew-j-friedland), a professor in Dartmouth’s Environmental Studies Program. “Our paper explores one of these outcomes: changes in beneficial and harmful elements in forest soils.”
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In other words, back during the Little Ice Age, when Plymouth Colony was established, the Indians were really making turpentine, not maple syrup. Bulls**t!!!! .
“coniferous soils had 30 percent to 50 percent less calcium, potassium, magnesium, manganese and zinc than deciduous stands”, meaning that conifers prefer different soils than hardwoods.
Is there a “study” that says that global warming will change the soil chemistry by making calcium, potassium, magnesium, manganese and zinc disappear?
Last I heard feldspar (the source of many of these minerals) and related minerals are 60% of the earth’s crust
Where can I buy a bunch of these trees that retain major metals?
I think I can revolutionize both the mining and the lumber industries with a well thought out “business plan” [Al Gore style of course].
“due to increased temperature and precipitation and changes in timber harvesting”
I believe the temp trend is down, is it not, in NE? The key phrase here is “changes in timber harvesting.”