Scientists baffled by sudden decline of aspen in Rockies
By David Usborne in New York
Published: 16 September 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1603871.ece
There is something doleful about the whispering of the white-barked aspen trees that carpet the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. It is a sound of sickness and death.
Scientists believe that up and down the mountain chain, the aspen trees are beginning to vanish. As many as 10 per cent have died or are ailing in parts of Arizona, Colorado and Utah, according to the surveys. In parts of Alberta, Canada, about 30 per cent of the trees have died in five years.
The greatest problem for the 100 scientists at a conference in Utah last week is that they are not sure what is afflicting the trees."As soon as we understand what's going on, then maybe we can do something about it," said Dale Bartos, a US Forest Service ecologist based in Utah. Tom Wardle, a forester from Colorado, said: "We will, I'm very confident, figure it out."
Researchers are focusing on the unusual reproductive system of the aspen. Instead of distributing seeds, the trees sit upon hugely complex root systems. As older trees die, the roots send up shoots which become saplings.
The greatest worry is that in areas where the trees are in trouble, the shoots are not appearing either. "If we're losing roots," warned Wayne Shepperd, of the US Forest Service, "that's going to change the amount of aspens on the landscape."
One possibility could be the presence of a previously undetected fungus. Recent periods of drought in the American West could be to blame, as well as the eating of shoots by herds of elk as well as human interference with the normal cycles of forest fires. Scientists are also wondering if caterpillars are responsible.
Informant: binstock
--------
September 26, 2006
Emblem of the West Is Dying, and No One Can Figure Out Why
By KATIE KELLEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/science/earth/26aspen.html
[foto] Kevin Moloney for The New York Times - Dr. Wayne Shepperd among aspen trees in North Park Valley, Colo.
DENVER, Sept. 25 — The aspen, an emblematic tree of the West and the most widely distributed tree in North America, is rapidly and mysteriously dying.
Its rapid decline is bewildering scientists and forest ecologists, who say they cannot pinpoint a cause.
“What’s causing the aspen to die?” asked Wayne Shepperd, a veteran researcher at the Rocky Mountain Research Center of the United States Forest Service. “We don’t know. Maybe this has been there all along, and we haven’t noticed it before, or maybe it’s something new.”
There is no shortage of suspects. Forest experts, who met this month at a conference in Utah to discuss the problem and look for solutions, say it may be insects, drought or climatic stress in general or overgrazing by animals like elk and cattle. Or it may be none or all of the above.
The aspen dieback is particularly baffling in that it seems to be occurring just in some Western states and is not affecting any neighboring trees, many of which already suffer from a plague of mountain pine beetles that has been devastating the West.
Since word of the aspen dieback began spreading last fall, Dr. Shepperd’s office began receiving reports of similar losses throughout the West — not just Colorado, where the problem is most predominant, but also in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Arizona and southern Wyoming.
But because there has been no concerted investigation, it is not clear how many aspen have died, much less why. “Quite honestly we just don’t have any answers,” Dr. Shepperd said.
The die-off is particularly worrisome because of the special nature of the aspen. The tree reproduces through vegetative regeneration. Genetically identical suckers sprout from the root of one tree and become clones. If the root of an aspen dies, it is unlikely to reproduce.
“We actually dug in a couple of instances and looked for live roots, and we couldn’t find any,” Dr. Shepperd said.
The dieback may go back as far as 1996, at the beginning of the recurrent drought, according to Mary Lou Fairweather, a plant pathologist for the Southwestern region of the Forest Service, who said she first noted the loss of trees in Arizona.
“I started monitoring the dieback on how the trees were growing, when and if it was continuing,” Ms. Fairweather said.
She added that she thought that the first deaths were caused by seasonal climate changes like spring freezes and then accelerated by other factors, including stress affecting the trees, although she noted that those were just theories.
In Utah, Dale Bartos, an aspen ecologist for the Forest Service, agreed that the lack of precipitation had contributed more stress to the aspen than initially thought.
“We’ve been in a major drought over the last few years, and I’m sure this has exacerbated the problem,” Mr. Bartos said.
Dr. Shepperd is not so sure. Although the current drought is probably a factor, he said, extensive long-term studies are needed.
“There’s no real pattern,” he said.
But he has noticed one intriguing clue. Some younger groves of aspen appear to be more resilient than the mature ones.
“Generally, younger stands seem to be healthier,” he said. But he added that it would be discouraging if these younger stands did not sprout. “We’re seeing it across the spectrum of site-conditioned aspen,” he said, meaning that no aspen is safe.
Mr. Bartos estimates that at the current rate 10 percent of the aspens in the West could die within several years. Some of his colleagues call that a conservative estimate.
“We’ve seen in southern Utah, over a period of 12 years, where we have very healthy-looking clones with dark green leaves go to sites where there aren’t any trees left at all,” Mr. Bartos said, adding that in other cases researchers had observed an even quicker rate of decline. “To me, 12 years is fairly rapid when we’re talking about trees that have been on site for 100 to 125 years.” Nevertheless, the scientists who met in Utah to look for a solution came away somewhat hopeful, said John Guyon, a forest pathologist for the Intermountain Regional Office of the Forest Service.
Mr. Guyon said he thought that grazing elk and cattle might be eating away the regenerating aspen. And because the trees thrive after disruptions like avalanches and fires, the lack of such disturbances may be contributing to the dieback.
Jim Worrall, another Forest Service pathologist, said the question was fraught with uncertainty.
“What we don’t know is what the future holds,” Mr. Worrall said. “It’s an unprecedented event.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Informant: Teresa Binstock
Published: 16 September 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1603871.ece
There is something doleful about the whispering of the white-barked aspen trees that carpet the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. It is a sound of sickness and death.
Scientists believe that up and down the mountain chain, the aspen trees are beginning to vanish. As many as 10 per cent have died or are ailing in parts of Arizona, Colorado and Utah, according to the surveys. In parts of Alberta, Canada, about 30 per cent of the trees have died in five years.
The greatest problem for the 100 scientists at a conference in Utah last week is that they are not sure what is afflicting the trees."As soon as we understand what's going on, then maybe we can do something about it," said Dale Bartos, a US Forest Service ecologist based in Utah. Tom Wardle, a forester from Colorado, said: "We will, I'm very confident, figure it out."
Researchers are focusing on the unusual reproductive system of the aspen. Instead of distributing seeds, the trees sit upon hugely complex root systems. As older trees die, the roots send up shoots which become saplings.
The greatest worry is that in areas where the trees are in trouble, the shoots are not appearing either. "If we're losing roots," warned Wayne Shepperd, of the US Forest Service, "that's going to change the amount of aspens on the landscape."
One possibility could be the presence of a previously undetected fungus. Recent periods of drought in the American West could be to blame, as well as the eating of shoots by herds of elk as well as human interference with the normal cycles of forest fires. Scientists are also wondering if caterpillars are responsible.
Informant: binstock
--------
September 26, 2006
Emblem of the West Is Dying, and No One Can Figure Out Why
By KATIE KELLEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/science/earth/26aspen.html
[foto] Kevin Moloney for The New York Times - Dr. Wayne Shepperd among aspen trees in North Park Valley, Colo.
DENVER, Sept. 25 — The aspen, an emblematic tree of the West and the most widely distributed tree in North America, is rapidly and mysteriously dying.
Its rapid decline is bewildering scientists and forest ecologists, who say they cannot pinpoint a cause.
“What’s causing the aspen to die?” asked Wayne Shepperd, a veteran researcher at the Rocky Mountain Research Center of the United States Forest Service. “We don’t know. Maybe this has been there all along, and we haven’t noticed it before, or maybe it’s something new.”
There is no shortage of suspects. Forest experts, who met this month at a conference in Utah to discuss the problem and look for solutions, say it may be insects, drought or climatic stress in general or overgrazing by animals like elk and cattle. Or it may be none or all of the above.
The aspen dieback is particularly baffling in that it seems to be occurring just in some Western states and is not affecting any neighboring trees, many of which already suffer from a plague of mountain pine beetles that has been devastating the West.
Since word of the aspen dieback began spreading last fall, Dr. Shepperd’s office began receiving reports of similar losses throughout the West — not just Colorado, where the problem is most predominant, but also in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Arizona and southern Wyoming.
But because there has been no concerted investigation, it is not clear how many aspen have died, much less why. “Quite honestly we just don’t have any answers,” Dr. Shepperd said.
The die-off is particularly worrisome because of the special nature of the aspen. The tree reproduces through vegetative regeneration. Genetically identical suckers sprout from the root of one tree and become clones. If the root of an aspen dies, it is unlikely to reproduce.
“We actually dug in a couple of instances and looked for live roots, and we couldn’t find any,” Dr. Shepperd said.
The dieback may go back as far as 1996, at the beginning of the recurrent drought, according to Mary Lou Fairweather, a plant pathologist for the Southwestern region of the Forest Service, who said she first noted the loss of trees in Arizona.
“I started monitoring the dieback on how the trees were growing, when and if it was continuing,” Ms. Fairweather said.
She added that she thought that the first deaths were caused by seasonal climate changes like spring freezes and then accelerated by other factors, including stress affecting the trees, although she noted that those were just theories.
In Utah, Dale Bartos, an aspen ecologist for the Forest Service, agreed that the lack of precipitation had contributed more stress to the aspen than initially thought.
“We’ve been in a major drought over the last few years, and I’m sure this has exacerbated the problem,” Mr. Bartos said.
Dr. Shepperd is not so sure. Although the current drought is probably a factor, he said, extensive long-term studies are needed.
“There’s no real pattern,” he said.
But he has noticed one intriguing clue. Some younger groves of aspen appear to be more resilient than the mature ones.
“Generally, younger stands seem to be healthier,” he said. But he added that it would be discouraging if these younger stands did not sprout. “We’re seeing it across the spectrum of site-conditioned aspen,” he said, meaning that no aspen is safe.
Mr. Bartos estimates that at the current rate 10 percent of the aspens in the West could die within several years. Some of his colleagues call that a conservative estimate.
“We’ve seen in southern Utah, over a period of 12 years, where we have very healthy-looking clones with dark green leaves go to sites where there aren’t any trees left at all,” Mr. Bartos said, adding that in other cases researchers had observed an even quicker rate of decline. “To me, 12 years is fairly rapid when we’re talking about trees that have been on site for 100 to 125 years.” Nevertheless, the scientists who met in Utah to look for a solution came away somewhat hopeful, said John Guyon, a forest pathologist for the Intermountain Regional Office of the Forest Service.
Mr. Guyon said he thought that grazing elk and cattle might be eating away the regenerating aspen. And because the trees thrive after disruptions like avalanches and fires, the lack of such disturbances may be contributing to the dieback.
Jim Worrall, another Forest Service pathologist, said the question was fraught with uncertainty.
“What we don’t know is what the future holds,” Mr. Worrall said. “It’s an unprecedented event.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Informant: Teresa Binstock
rudkla - 17. Sep, 15:54
