New York Times, Sunday 5/2/99, Week In Review, p. 2.

Brief piece with no referenced sources. Red maples (Acer rubrum) are taking over NE forests. It is theorized that forest fires favored the survival of oaks and others on upland sites but that supression of fires in the last 50-75 years has allowed red maple to supplant oaks, hickories and other hardwoods. Red maples have a natural resistance (repellant chemicals, new to me) to gypsy moth larvae. Focused on ecological consequences (e.g. loss of acorns and nuts as a food source will drastically reduce certain animal and insect populations).

Reply to post by Scott Cullen, on May 02, 1999 at 21:37:57:

Where I grew up (pinebarrens of south Jersey) fire was and is a major factor in red maple management. The deciduous species with few exceptions are less tolerant of fire then Pinus rigida, P. echinata, and P. virginiana which are the tree dominant upland conifers. Chamecyparis thyoides is less tolerant but reside primarily on wet soils and the intensity of fires is less in those locations. Several oaks such as Q. marylandica, Q. prinoides, Q. illicifolia do just fine with periodic burning.

I guess if you have all red oaks and red maples or something, the oaks will be lost first in a fire, but not in s. Jersey.

How do maples hold up to fire elsewhere guys?

Wayne

Reply to post by Wayne Cahilly, on May 02, 1999 at 21:37:57:

Actually, I think it's the reverse. Oaks, with thicker bark, generally survive upland fires better. Thus, natural fires tend to control the prolificly seeding Acer rubrum. Stop the fire cycle and the Acer rubrum exploits any open space where an oak or hickory has failed (storm, gypsymoth, whatever), shades out oak seedlings and gradually come to dominate.

Reply to post by Scott Cullen, on May 03, 1999 at 09:14:37:

It depends on fire frequency and local growing conditions. A. rubrum in southern Jersey is primarily an edge of bog species, wet soils with a peat base where most of the oaks are fully xeric species. Therefore, the local situation results in greater heat intensity in the upland burns resulting in more heat damage to foliage even when a canopy burn does not occur. These are primarily spring burns so the peat bogs are wet. Summer peat fires have taken everything out since the rootsystem gets cooked

Frequency in S. Jersey is 20 years or less in many areas. This allows oaks to be taken out as they are often stumpsprouts, resprouts or seedlings and heavy bark has often not developed except in Q. marylandica, Q. ilicifolia etc. Also, such species as Nyssa and Magnolia virginiana escape the burns by being right in with the Acer rubrum on the margins of the bogs. There are so many neat little relationships between the plant species, environmment, and fire down there; impossible to steriotype any of it.

Wayne

Reply to post by Scott Cullen, on May 02, 1999 at 21:37:57:

I remember back in Maine they did very well in swamps. If a person didn't care for them, they were called "swamp maple". If a person did care for them, they were called "red maple". In Oregon, bigleaf maple is called "native" if you like it, or "weed tree" if you don't.

Reply to post by Scott Cullen, on May 02, 1999 at 21:37:57:

The source of the maple story: J. of Forestry, May 1999. Marc D. Abrams, Penn. State. Quite an interesting story- he calls the red maple an ecological marvel.