Good question. It should remain a mature pine forest for generations, until the next catastrophic fire consumes the trees again and starts the process all over again.
when Tasmania was first seen by westerners 200 years ago it was described as a savannah landscape, it has taken all this time for it to naturally return to the temperate rainforest which is its evolutionary path. The only mistake we made was not to help with this restoration and return many of the species lost because they were not fire tolerant. We co evolved with New Zealand and they have many deciduous species we seem to have lost. . I believe Savannah is the intermediary cover in many areas due to mans use of fire, grazing and clearing and has become permanent in many areas of the world but this is not the evolutionary path of our flora and fauna. A difficult conundrum we are in especially as evidence of lost species is difficult to obtain and could we bring them back even if we wanted to? What did the mega fauna need to survive before man set foot on this land may give us some evidence. Thanks for your blog I look forward to reading some of the past posts.
Very timely post, as my family is in the midst of our annual escape from the Midwest to Marin County. Your coverage of the chaparral landscape has opened my eyes to the incredible variety of plants that blanket the craggy seaside hills around here. Thank you.
In fact, there’s so much diversity on the ground that I’m frustrated with my inability to successfully identify some of the more common plants! Even the terrific search capability of calflora.org or nature apps like Seek haven’t solved the mystery in many cases. Unless I’m able to find a local expert, I’m afraid I’ll need to revert to a state of awe-filled ignorance, and simply appreciate the beauty of the inhabitants of the landscape without knowing their human-given names. If only the rain would pause for a few days…
And after the pines come??? I guess we never reach that stage anymore.
Good question. It should remain a mature pine forest for generations, until the next catastrophic fire consumes the trees again and starts the process all over again.
when Tasmania was first seen by westerners 200 years ago it was described as a savannah landscape, it has taken all this time for it to naturally return to the temperate rainforest which is its evolutionary path. The only mistake we made was not to help with this restoration and return many of the species lost because they were not fire tolerant. We co evolved with New Zealand and they have many deciduous species we seem to have lost. . I believe Savannah is the intermediary cover in many areas due to mans use of fire, grazing and clearing and has become permanent in many areas of the world but this is not the evolutionary path of our flora and fauna. A difficult conundrum we are in especially as evidence of lost species is difficult to obtain and could we bring them back even if we wanted to? What did the mega fauna need to survive before man set foot on this land may give us some evidence. Thanks for your blog I look forward to reading some of the past posts.
Informative post!
Thanks, Joel. Coming from you, that means a lot to me.
Very timely post, as my family is in the midst of our annual escape from the Midwest to Marin County. Your coverage of the chaparral landscape has opened my eyes to the incredible variety of plants that blanket the craggy seaside hills around here. Thank you.
In fact, there’s so much diversity on the ground that I’m frustrated with my inability to successfully identify some of the more common plants! Even the terrific search capability of calflora.org or nature apps like Seek haven’t solved the mystery in many cases. Unless I’m able to find a local expert, I’m afraid I’ll need to revert to a state of awe-filled ignorance, and simply appreciate the beauty of the inhabitants of the landscape without knowing their human-given names. If only the rain would pause for a few days…