Natural History Wanderings

Earth.com  reports

Extreme weather and natural disturbances often capture headlines for their dramatic impact on forests, but it’s the more common, moderate-severity disturbances – like smaller fires, ice storms, and pest outbreaks – that may play a bigger role in shaping ecosystems than previously recognized.

“Since they’re more common, they’re probably playing a larger role in the ecosystem than we might have appreciated before,” said senior author Brady Hardiman, an associate professor of forestry and natural resources and environmental and ecological engineering at Purdue University.

“At any given time, a huge fraction of the forested landscape is undergoing or regrowing from a moderate-severity disturbance, which took out some of the trees but not all of them. The forest is not regrowing from scratch.”

Source: Complex canopies help forests recover from disturbances • Earth.com