The soil tends to be less nutrient rich at these elevations and the weather conditions tend to be significantly harsher than at lower elevations. This means that the trees in this area are exposed to a great deal more acid precipitation than others.
It is hard to pinpoint acid deposition as the leading cause of what is happening in the forests. Many factors contribute to how well a forest thrives including soil, climate, genetic makeup of the tree, and other biological factors. (US Dept of Agriculture 7) In fact, three natural enemies that threaten the tree population are fire, insects, and fungi. (Mello 11). .
Grant 3.
However, these problems were not detected as the cause of the decline and researchers began searching elsewhere for answers.
Red Spruce trees thrive in inhospitable climate zones in the Northeast, often growing in pure stands at elevations exceeding 3,000 ft above sea level. Also, these trees are capable of surviving for 400 years. This is why when scientists began noticing the spruce struggling to survive they began to look into why a tree that could withstand so much are seemingly under "attack". In 1982, Dr. Hubert w. Vogelmann, chairman of the Department of Botany at UVM, reported the red spruces were dying in the virgin forests on Camel's Hump. This prompted extensive research into why this might be happening. Red Spruce live at high elevations and are capable of surviving in thin, rocky soil with an already high acidity. At the elevation in which they live there is not a lot of bedrock to absorb the additional acids deposited by the extreme weather conditions. In turn other nutrients are leached from the soil and this is a factor in the decline of the red spruce popula!.
tion. As the red spruce die back and fall to the ground, this opens the canopy for sunlight to reach the ground and new species to form. Where red spruce seedlings may once have thrived, the sunlight allowing ferns and other ground plants to grow, competing with the seedlings for sunlight and .
The White Mountains Region covers northwestern Maine and part of New Hampshire and Vermont. ... Trees include the balsam fir, basswood, beech, hemlock, maple, oak, pine, spruce, and white and yellow birch. Maine's most common wild flowers are the anemone, aster, bittersweet, black-eyes Susan, buttercup, goldenrod, harebell, hepatica, Indian pipe, orange and red hawkweed, white oxeye daisy, and wild bergamot. ...
