Deer are Killing our Trees

Doran Teverovsky

No author given
March 8th, 2014
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140308095500.htm

Summary: This article is correlating booming deer populations, and growth of invasive species. Deer prefer to eat native, woody, plants. When these plants are eaten, it gives invasive species more of an opportunity to spread. A normal progression for a forest is grasses to shrubs to trees. When a large population of deer are introduced to an area, they interrupt the progression from shrubs to trees. When this occurs, other invasive plants and shrubs like buckthorn and multiflora rose. This also leads to barren soil, and greatly reduced biomass of plants.

Connection: This is a direct relation to ecosystems, and ecological threats, as well as plants and animals, and how trees reproduce. As the deer ate the seeds, they were both directly and indirectly threatening the forest. By eating too many seeds, there was less reproduction of trees in forests where there were large populations of deer. In addition, the invasive species also boomed crowding out trees because of the deer inhibiting the growth of native, woody trees. Also, this has to do with the reproduction strategies of trees. Deer help them reproduce, but with so many deer in a small area, the trees aren't maturing enough for them to fully create seeds.