Wuhan, China, doesn’t appear on any of today’s “Most Desirable Places to Visit” list. COVID-19 has eliminated it from consideration by travel groups that make such “best places” lists. But life, even during the pandemic, continues there as a recently released study by Wuhan University researchers indicates. The study focused on dangers to “foundation tree species,” those plants that anchor the development of mature forests, specifically in this study, maples.*
In short, some tree genera get there first, establish themselves, and flourish as dominant species in temperate forests. Whereas ecologists have for decades focused on the rare and endangered species, those led by Xiujuan Qiao centered their study on those trees most of us would consider abundant in number. Their contention is that the health of those foundation species is an important indicator of the health of the temperate forest ecology.
Let’s think human analogs. The government gets the funding to build a highway with its associated cloverleaf entrances and exits. Someone or some company then builds a gas (or petrol in the UK) station at one of the cloverleaf junctures. Across from or adjacent to the station, someone then builds a fast-food restaurant. And then another gas station, and then another restaurant, and then a few motels and some shops, and then a couple more restaurants and two more gas stations. The whole area then gets first condos and then houses, all precipitating more of the same as the cloverleaf stretches into a full-blown community, with shopping centers or a mall and probably with a school and hospital. Gas stations are the foundational species of mature temperate communities, just as the maples are “foundational” across 26 degrees of latitude in China.
But, of course, there’s a downside to being the foundational and dominant species. When they are mature and form a canopy, dominant species can crowd out or prevent from growing other potential inhabitants of an area—or even more of their own kind. Look around. That’s what we humans do all over the planet. And we often suffer the same fate as forests dominated by single species. When those species age, they yield to decline for various reasons. Communities that grow off cloverleafs tend toward vitality and then toward decline. An elementary school established to accommodate young families serves little purpose when all the children grow and move away, leaving the elderly to pay for a school with a declining enrollment. And with changes in their types and numbers of patrons, shops and restaurants can also undergo a decline, leaving store fronts—and factories—vacant. You could probably think of numerous parallels: Walmart and Costco, for example, dominant business species that crowd out other store species and then ultimately moving on to different locations with changes in the area’s demographics.
It seems to me that the human analogs of foundation species are numerous. It might even be evident in the forests of political systems. Think, for example, of the Soviet Union. That forest dominated by a single widespread political philosophy declined under the pressures of other political species. And the same might be said for dominant political parties in any government. The foundation species give way to age; the old political forests decline. Sometimes the decline derives from internal processes, like aging. Sometimes the decline occurs as a new species invades: Kudzu, for example.
But from plants to humans, isn’t that the way of the world? Interestingly, the old surviving foundational species don’t readily give up their dominance. I think of “older” communities bypassed by new highways, the businesses in those towns dead or dying for lack of trade. I live on the outskirts of such a town. It was, before my time, once vital. But the “old trees,” not recognizing the futility of trying to revitalize, keep holding onto the image of their once diverse and mature “forest.” Archaeologists have dug up many such towns across the world, towns whose origins date from centuries to millennia ago. There’s always a struggle for dominance, and there’s always the inevitable decline of the dominant.
*Qiao, Xiujuan, et al. 26 Oct 2020. Foundation Species Across a Latitudinal Gradient in China. Ecology Society of America (ESA online): https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3234. Online at https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.3234 Accessed November 2, 2020.
In short, some tree genera get there first, establish themselves, and flourish as dominant species in temperate forests. Whereas ecologists have for decades focused on the rare and endangered species, those led by Xiujuan Qiao centered their study on those trees most of us would consider abundant in number. Their contention is that the health of those foundation species is an important indicator of the health of the temperate forest ecology.
Let’s think human analogs. The government gets the funding to build a highway with its associated cloverleaf entrances and exits. Someone or some company then builds a gas (or petrol in the UK) station at one of the cloverleaf junctures. Across from or adjacent to the station, someone then builds a fast-food restaurant. And then another gas station, and then another restaurant, and then a few motels and some shops, and then a couple more restaurants and two more gas stations. The whole area then gets first condos and then houses, all precipitating more of the same as the cloverleaf stretches into a full-blown community, with shopping centers or a mall and probably with a school and hospital. Gas stations are the foundational species of mature temperate communities, just as the maples are “foundational” across 26 degrees of latitude in China.
But, of course, there’s a downside to being the foundational and dominant species. When they are mature and form a canopy, dominant species can crowd out or prevent from growing other potential inhabitants of an area—or even more of their own kind. Look around. That’s what we humans do all over the planet. And we often suffer the same fate as forests dominated by single species. When those species age, they yield to decline for various reasons. Communities that grow off cloverleafs tend toward vitality and then toward decline. An elementary school established to accommodate young families serves little purpose when all the children grow and move away, leaving the elderly to pay for a school with a declining enrollment. And with changes in their types and numbers of patrons, shops and restaurants can also undergo a decline, leaving store fronts—and factories—vacant. You could probably think of numerous parallels: Walmart and Costco, for example, dominant business species that crowd out other store species and then ultimately moving on to different locations with changes in the area’s demographics.
It seems to me that the human analogs of foundation species are numerous. It might even be evident in the forests of political systems. Think, for example, of the Soviet Union. That forest dominated by a single widespread political philosophy declined under the pressures of other political species. And the same might be said for dominant political parties in any government. The foundation species give way to age; the old political forests decline. Sometimes the decline derives from internal processes, like aging. Sometimes the decline occurs as a new species invades: Kudzu, for example.
But from plants to humans, isn’t that the way of the world? Interestingly, the old surviving foundational species don’t readily give up their dominance. I think of “older” communities bypassed by new highways, the businesses in those towns dead or dying for lack of trade. I live on the outskirts of such a town. It was, before my time, once vital. But the “old trees,” not recognizing the futility of trying to revitalize, keep holding onto the image of their once diverse and mature “forest.” Archaeologists have dug up many such towns across the world, towns whose origins date from centuries to millennia ago. There’s always a struggle for dominance, and there’s always the inevitable decline of the dominant.
*Qiao, Xiujuan, et al. 26 Oct 2020. Foundation Species Across a Latitudinal Gradient in China. Ecology Society of America (ESA online): https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3234. Online at https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.3234 Accessed November 2, 2020.
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