Less than 10% of forest cover in the United States can be classified as old growth. These “elderly forests” are biodiversity hotspots because there are some niches only time can provide. Scientists are unsure if it is even possible for a secondary forest to return to a primary state, nor how long that would take.
Here on the East Coast, only half a percent of the primary forest remains. Most forests in Maryland are secondary forests. Once the primary state was logged, the land was used for agriculture. Growing crops and grazing animals leave a signature on forest soils, detectable long after agricultural abandonment. Non-native earthworms, dominating urban and rural forests in the region, further modify soil properties, pushing the system to a different evolutionary trajectory.
Dr. Szlavecz and her team have been conducting observations and experiments on the physical, chemical, and biological soil properties at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) for two decades. SERC includes a patchwork of forest stands of different ages which serves as an excellent natural laboratory to study forest regeneration. In this presentation, she will summarize the main results of research into the effects on forest soil development of historical land use, stand age, and two separate earthworm invasion events.
Katalin Szlavecz is a soil ecologist and Research Professor at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD. Her research focuses on how past and present human activities affect the soil’s physical, chemical, and biological properties. She conducts field studies in temperate forests, agricultural fields, and the diverse urban landscape. As Research Associate at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, she has been studying the effect of invasive earthworms on forest soils. At JHU she teaches courses on global environmental change, general ecology, and soil ecology.
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