On the Adirondack Trip, a nice man named Paul discussed how they were managing their forests. Their forest tree species composition has been changing with sugar maple trees were becoming less abundant. This is partly caused by beech trees outcompeting the maples due to the stressor of beech bark disease. When a beech tree is affected by the disease, the stressor stimulates the tree to respond through the production of root suckers. These root suckers, which are genetic clones of their parent tree, can be infected and produce root suckers of their own. The cycle of non-resistant beech cloning caused the area to be covered with beech trees. Furthermore, deer prefer to browse maple and birch, not beech trees. Together with beech competition and high deer population density, the sugar maples have no chances of persisting.
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The management program for the maples includes practices for light, beech competition, and herbivory. To test to see how much light sugar maples need, they set up an experiment with three repetitions of five treatments. The treatments ranged from a clear-cut acre (100% light) to an acre receiving 25% light. For each acre, half was sprayed with herbicides for the beeches. For herbivory, they set up a deer exclosure. Interestingly, within the exclosure, there were many birch saplings and trees with little maple. Exclosures only planted with maple had success. So, this led them to conclude that having some deer is better for the sugar maples. In a section of the region, of which I believe the deer population was managed, there was a mixture of maple, birch, and beech, with there being more maple than beech trees. This is due to the ecologically functional deer density of the area (10 deer per square miles) allowing maple trees to naturally regenerate and control the beech
The management program for the maples includes practices for light, beech competition, and herbivory. To test to see how much light sugar maples need, they set up an experiment with three repetitions of five treatments. The treatments ranged from a clear-cut acre (100% light) to an acre receiving 25% light. For each acre, half was sprayed with herbicides for the beeches. For herbivory, they set up a deer exclosure. Interestingly, within the exclosure, there were many birch saplings and trees with little maple. Exclosures only planted with maple had success. So, this led them to conclude that having some deer is better for the sugar maples. In a section of the region, of which I believe the deer population was managed, there was a mixture of maple, birch, and beech, with there being more maple than beech trees. This is due to the ecologically functional deer density of the area (10 deer per square miles) allowing maple trees to naturally regenerate and control the beech