aura Ingalls Wilder’s beloved series of novels about life in the American frontier begins in Wisconsin with the novel Little House in the Big Woods. Less than a hundred years since its publication, a study in Conservation Biology finds that these Midwestern ‘big woods’ are experiencing a worse-than-expected decline and would likely be unrecognizable to Wilder herself.
The new study of forest patches in Wisconsin finds that the temperate forest are losing abundance and diversity of native species due to increasing land-use changes and fragmentation. Bordering Canada, Wisconsin is apart of the Midwest region of the United States where temperate forests were first felled for agriculture beginning in the 1800s. Since then remaining forests have been lost due to housing developments, sprawling suburbs, roads, and strip malls.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin, Madison looked to the forest floor—surveying shrubs, grasses, and herbs—to determine the impact of humans on the ecosystem. Checking their findings against detailed records made by ecologist John Curtis in the 1940s and 1950s, what the researchers discovered was worse than they expected: even when the patches of forests appeared healthy, they were no longer capable of preserving the region’s biodiversity. They found a widespread decline in abundance and diversity of native plants, especially in southern Wisconsin where forests have been increasingly lost due to land-use changes.
"Things may look healthy, but over time we see an erosion of biodiversity," co-author Don Waller says, a professor of botany. Furthermore, the researchers found that biodiversity was even in decline in state parks and other protected areas.
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http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0614-hance_midwest.html
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