It is a rare occasion when I invite someone to guest post here, but when I read the following social media post by Justin Thomas, I knew I needed to share his message formally. I will have a few comments at the end, but here let us first hear his experience, without edits.
”Here are the woods by my house after six years of doing absolutely nothing but letting nature order itself over time.
A brief history: This is the crest of a north facing slope that drops off dramatically in the background (photo facing northwest). The road you can see is called "Bluff Drive," because of the steep slope. To the south the hill flattens for 60 meters or so and then becomes a large flat grown over field. The field was obviously plowed historically and the woods, on the edge of the field, were cut-over, but not likely ever plowed. The earliest aerial photography I've seen is from the early 1960s, and the woods between the road and the field (the woods in the photo) had begun to grow back and are now some of the oldest woods within many miles. They were probably grazed until the mid-1970s when the houses on this dead-end street (now a mile outside of city limits) were built.
The woods are largely early successional trees like Black Walnut and Hackberry that germinated after the grazing and probably brush-hogging, or Euro-American burning. There are also large Black Oaks, Maple-Leaved Oaks, and Chinquapin Oaks that are likely sucker sprouts from the stumps of the original woods, or sprouts from the stumps of the sprouts of an earlier cut, that though the same size as the early successional trees, are decades older. This last point is important because though there are big oaks, they are not yet colonizing, nor can they because the damaged system is not what they colonize into. Still, I suspect in the next 20-30 years, left to their own devices, they will recruit back into the system.
The woods in the above photo (taken in 2020) are full of Buckbrush, Missouri Gooseberry, Clustered Black Snakeroot (Sanicula ordorata), and little else. These are hallmark species of former grazing, especially in woods. My family and I moved onto the property in 2016 and I immediately expressed my desire, my NEED, to get in and cut all the Buckbrush in order to open the woods for floral diversity. My wife asked me to leave enough to maintain the privacy it provided us and our neighbors. That's how thick it was. I was too busy and, let's face it, too lazy, to ever do it.
Turns out laziness has many rewards. In the spring of 2020, and the reason I took the photo, I noticed that there was less Buckbrush and Gooseberry than the year prior. Over the next couple of years that decline increased substantially every year. Six years later the Buckbrush, Missouri Gooseberry, and Clustered Black Snakeroot are almost completely gone. As these short-lived shrubs died of old age, and minus any further ecological damage that would allow their seeds to germinate and replace their parents, slowly more and more sedges, grasses, and forbs colonized the woods.
Let me rephrase that, because the sedges, grasses, and forbs were already there, just at very low densities (as is usually the case in such places). What I should have written was: as the woods became less suitable to Buckbrush and Gooseberry it became more suitable for the sedges, grasses, and forbs that had been eking out their existence at very low densities in the micro-scale nooks and crannies that had not been highly impacted. These kinds of population lulls also afford many species an escape from pathogens, so when they do have the opportunity to recolonize, their metabolisms are more geared toward reproduction than defense.
While this was going on, young saplings, and some larger trees that were suppressed under the larger trees, also could not maintain their metabolic needs and they died. This further opened the canopy and midstory, allowing light to power the ground flora metabolisms. Simultaneously, with less canopy and midstory, air moves around more and the site dries out faster, decreasing the fungal load (fungi are the number one seed predators), increasing insect activity, and aiding both wind and insect pollination.
The point of this story is that no human did anything to increase any of the wonderful clockwork things that happened and that are happening. The only human part of the story is the negative impact and subsequent abandonment. The powerline cut in the background, just before the road, has Bush Honeysuckle, Japanese Honeysuckle, Multiflora Rose, and Eastern Red Cedar. They, too, are declining. Why? Because this is what nature does. Damaged systems are colonized by species that thrive in the damage (largely driven by nutrient availability). When damage/disturbance stops, the nutrient availability declines and eventually the system becomes the sort of place where damage-dependent species cannot persist. This is why most damage-dependent species have short lives, long distance dispersal mechanisms, make lots of seeds, and have seeds that bank longer than stability-dependent species. It is a core natural phenomenon inherent to all living systems.
I'm sharing this because it isn't a freak occurrence. I see this everywhere, and I hope that after reading this you may see it, too. It is so beautifully encouraging to realize that so much of what we worry about in conservation/ecology comes from a lack of understanding of how magical living systems actually are. When we understand how they work, there is so much less to worry about (and so much less "work" to do).
This is my 30th year as a botanist/ecologist and the greatest joy of doing it this long is revisiting sites I've known for decades, and seeing them benefit vastly more from no human intervention than from too much human intervention. I don't see these healthful trends and trajectories in many places that are "managed". Sorry, I won't pretend that I do.
This idea is going to upset people. This is not the conventional perspective. I was resistant to it myself, but as someone whose job it has been to collect data and monitor ecological management, from thinning and fire to controls, this is a vastly overlooked truth of the natural world: that it can do it better without us.
Maybe that isn't fair. I'll rephrase: it can do it better when we appreciate and understand how it can do it better without us, AND we follow its lead and offer a bit of assistance. Not to get political, but when you love something correctly you ask for consent and anticipate your love's needs, rather than telling it what YOU like, what it likes, and forcing it to comply. Love, patience, understanding, and compassion are ecological principles, not freaky hippie nonsense.
I know a lot of woods that look like the 2020 photo. I'm so excited to see them when they hit the point of transcendence, and so happy to know that I don't have to do anything for it to happen.”
What struck me from reading this is the concept of “disturbance-dependent” flora; and the idea that further disturbing a parcel of land, even in the act of removing invasive species, frequently makes things worse, or prevents reversion to natural conditions. Is this true in every ecological situation? No. Should it be considered in designing and implementing restoration and mitigation efforts? Definitely.
This is also the kind of philosophy we should be using in addressing all kinds of environmental, economic, and social problems. We have to start questioning the validity of the systems that are dictating certain ways of acting, and suppressing alternative methods. We cannot continue to use only profit and costs to determine the best solutions. “Scaling up” is not necessarily the best way to go. In fact, it might exacerbate the problem.
This blog respects dissent as well as validation, so please do not hesitate to enter your own thoughts into the comments, in a respectful fashion. Share *your* experiences. Thank you.
Justin Thomas is the co-founder and Science Director of NatureCITE, and the co-founder and Director of the Institute of Botanical Training. He has a BS from the University of Missouri and an MS in botany from Miami University – Ohio. He has 30 years of experience conducting ecological and taxonomic research, instructing plant identification workshops, and serves as a scientific advisor to several conservation organizations in the central and eastern United States.
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