Nature's Temples: The Complex World of Old-Growth Forests

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Last year I decided to read books to help me understand the importance of the habitats I encounter (or would like to encounter) in Florida. I didn't realize when I bought this book just how rare old growth are. In the Eastern United States, only 1 percent of our forests qualify as old growth. The west is not much better at about 3 percent. It turns out I've only visited one forest that qualifies as "old growth" in the Eastern U.S., and that's Swallow Falls State Park (the photo surrounding the title of this blog comes from there). Swallow Falls contains 37 acres of old growth forest, including the last stand of virgin hemlock in the State of Maryland. Some of the trees here are over 300 years old. As I read this book, I found myself longing to visit one of Florida's old growth forests, and I was saddened to learn that most of them weren't anywhere near me. The Apalachcola National Forest (north) and the Big Cypress National Preserve (south) were just too far away. There is one small forest near me that has some old growth, the Tosohatchee Wildlife Management Area, which contains as much as 2000 acres of hydric hammock, mesic flatwoods, and floodplain swamp.

Joan Maloof offers several insights that I found helpful and interesting.
  1. Larger, older trees are better at pulling carbon from the atmosphere than younger trees. This apparently is a reversal of what was thought to be the case 10 years ago. But as trees grow larger, they add more mass from photosynthesis.
  2. Trees have a symbiotic relationship with fungi in forests, and the health of the trees in the forest to some extent depends on the networks between the trees through fungi. Usually the largest trees in an area are central hubs for these fungal networks. 
  3. There are numerous species that need old growth forests for their survival, including many birds and salamanders. However, good logging practices can imitate some of the types of habitats that are needed for many species, especially salamanders.
  4. The U.S. is inundated by invasive worms, most of which we have introduced through fishing. And these worms are not good for forests.
We can't get back the old growth forests we cut down. We can only conserve what remains and allow more forests to get older.

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