Billions of magnificent trees that were nearly annihilated a century ago are making a slow, yet promising, comeback thanks in part to a team of Clemson University researchers and their collaborators.
Colossal stands of longleaf pines once dominated vast swaths of the United States from southeastern Virginia to Florida and west through Louisiana to Texas. But in the 18th and 19th centuries, more than 90 million acres of longleaf forest were obliterated to build ships and railroads. By 1920, the towering trees had been nearly wiped out. And equally distressing, the understory of these forests, which harbor one of the most diverse and fascinating ecosystems in the world, disappeared along with the trees.
“At one time, it was estimated that longleaf pine forests covered as many as 93 million acres. Right now, we’re down to about 3 million acres, and very little of that is old-growth longleaf pine,” said T.J. Savereno, a senior associate agent for Clemson Cooperative Extension. “But there have been efforts across the range of longleaf — involving state and federal agencies, private landowners and nonprofits — to bring back the longleaf pine and its associated ecosystem.”
Since 2011, Savereno has worked in conjunction with Joan Walker of the U.S. Forest Service to spearhead an ongoing project called “The South Carolina Longleaf Pine Ground-Layer Common Garden Study,” which has focused on a variety of native plants commonly found in the understories of longleaf pine forests. Three different common garden plots at Clemson University’s Sandhill, Pee Dee and Coastal research and education centers have become home to legumes, grasses and asters collected in the wild from 23 locations in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. One of the main focal points of the study is to determine how well plant species from relatively wide-ranging geographical regions thrive in a common location.
“Even within their own species, plants are genetically adapted to their environment. They have special abilities to thrive where they grow, and if you move them too far out of their comfort zone, they may not grow as well,” said Walker, a research ecologist for the U.S. Forest Service who is based at Clemson University. “The understory of a longleaf system is like a prairie, and a lot of its species are widespread and have the same name in Minnesota or Texas as they do in South Carolina. We knew there were variations within these species, but we didn’t know how variable they were and in what ways they varied. So we’ve gathered seeds from many places, put them in the same garden, and then watched to see how they perform, side by side.”
From The Clemson Newsstand: https://newsstand.clemson.edu/mediarelations/clemson-scientists-collaborators-working-to-restore-longleaf-pine-forests/