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I find that hard to believe. Grasslands that are managed in the suggested way become nutrient poor and support way less life than a naturally grown forest. Ever
by Lutger 3y ago
I find that hard to believe. Grasslands that are managed in the suggested way become nutrient poor and support way less life than a naturally grown forest. Everybody is eating from trees: nuts, fruit, leaves even the wood itself.
A natural forest - not the managed ones with just a couple of species - is absolutely teeming with life.
However, there is something in between nutritionally poor wildflower grassland and thick dense forest and I feel those hit the sweet spot.
Finally, I feel biodiversity is often given so much value that we don't even think about the amount of life anymore. It turns out that some ecologically managed grasslands do have a high number of species, but just not a lot of each one, whereas an open forest can harbor way more animals.
This makes sense: there is just not a lot to eat when you only have wildflowers on the menu.
- justrealist 3y agoThink about it this way — the sun is the prime energy input to a biome. - In a temperate forest, basically nothing eats canopy foliage. Maybe they did when we had mastodons and forest elephants, but we don't now. Trees grow, die, and get eaten by fungus. - In grasslands, nearly 100% of the photosynthesized energy is available to megafauna. Deer simply can't eat the bark of adult trees, or get to the leaves. Yes, some trees drop a lot of nuts, but it's nothing compared to what a prarie can support (aka, millions of bison).
- munch117 3y agoYou are making a compelling argument that grassland has a richer diversity of grazers. But surely the diversity of fauna is richer in the forest.
- justrealist 3y agoIt's just not. I recommend you research deeper here. Fauna is richest only near the edges of the forest or near rivers. In a deep closed-canopy temperate forest, there's just really not that much going on.
- aziaziazi 3y agoThat’s fine because bisons aren’t considered good pollinators. Forests canopy is a very, very living biome for pollinators however. You’ll find birds, insects (and small mammals) in droves over the canopy but no “megafauna” indeed. Francis Hallé work on forests, canopies and trees architecture is fascinating and insightful. He’s one of the creator of the “radeau des cimes”, an aerostat designed to study the canopy. Bonus point: forest tends to retain water much better than grassland and therefore are less prone to drought.
- greenie_beans 3y ago> forest tends to retain water much better than grassland and therefore are less prone to drought. you're gonna have to cite this claim
- aziaziazi 3y agoWell, first result on my search engine links to an UN specialized agency (FAO) document. > Forests perform important buffering functions, such as cooling effects, the interception of precipitation, and water infiltration and retention. https://www.fao.org/sustainable-forest-management/toolbox/modules/forest-and-water/basic-knowledge/en/?type=111 https://www.fao.org/sustainable-forest-management/toolbox/mo...
- greenie_beans 3y ago> support way less life than a naturally grown forest. do you have something i could read that supports this claim? it's my understanding that grasslands create more habitat and food compared to a closed canopy forest.
- aziaziazi 3y agoFrom NG for kids: > Forests contain much of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, including insects, birds, and mammals https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/five-major-types-biomes/ https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/five-major... You’ll find insects in the (rich) soil, on the tree barks, on they leafs and on the canopy; bird make nest and shelter on and inside trees, sometimes with twigs and others debris; mammals lives in burrow between the roots and climb trees and eats their fruits and foliage.
- greenie_beans 3y agoyikes that is hardly a resource > contain much of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity "much" that's like not science