Just like the economy, nut and seed production goes up and down in the forest. Iain explains how evolution plays a roll in keeping mast production unpredictable.
November 28, 2003: Mast Bust
Welcome to Something Wild! I'm Iain MacLeod from the Audubon Society of New Hampshire.
I know this is going to sound a bit weird, but lately I've been fascinated by how similar acorns are to the economy. Just as the economy goes up and down over the years, so does our mast crop - acorns and beechnuts and other nuts and seeds. The last couple of years, we've had bumper crops of mast. However, this year was a bear market for mast, to put it in economic terms.
Why exactly did this happen? The mast, that is, not the economy. Well, scientists really don't know for sure, but it looks as though it all comes down to evolution.
Trees put out their seeds in order to reproduce. They put out a lot of seed because much of it gets eaten by many animals, such as bear, mice, turkeys, Blue Jays, and a variety of insects.
If the trees produced large crops of seed every year, then the animals that eat it would be able to depend on it and there would be more of them. More animals means more seed would be eaten, so it would be harder for the trees to reproduce.
But if the trees produced seed sporadically, the seed would not be a dependable food source. Animal populations would drop, and those left must focus on a variety of food sources in order to survive. So the trees that reproduce in a more random pattern are able to reproduce more successfully.
Of course, weather or insects can be a problem. But there have been years when the weather has been fine and insects are minimal, but mast crops have still been way down.
So, starting this year, we should be seeing fewer mice and squirrels. And many of us have seen bears in places where we've never seen them before, including raiding our backyard apple trees and bird feeders.
But all this is to be expected. So even if this year is a "bear" market for mast, it's just a matter of time before we're back to a "bull" market again. I just wish the economy were so predictable!
Something Wild is a joint production of the Audubon Society of New
Hampshire, New Hampshire Public Radio, and the Society for the
Protection of New Hampshire Forests. For Something Wild, I'm Iain
MacLeod.
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