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The Forgotten Forest被遗忘的森林

Found only in the Deep South of America, long leaf pine woodlands have dwindled to about 3 percent of their former range, but new efforts are under way to restore them.

长叶松林只在美国南部的深处发现，现在已经减少到原来的  3%，但新的努力正在进行中，以恢复它们。

THE BEAUTY AND THE BIODIVERSITY of the longleaf pine forest are well-kept secrets, even in its native South. Yet it is among the richest ecosystems in North America, rivaling tall grass prairies and the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest in the number of species it shelters. And like those two other disappearing wildlife habitats, longleaf is also critically endangered.

长叶松林的美丽和生物多样性一直是保存完好的秘密，即使在它的原产地南方也是如此。然而，它是北美最丰富的生态系统之一，在物种数量上可与太平洋西北部的大草原和古老森林相媲美。和其他两个正在消失的野生动物栖息地一样，长叶也是极度濒危物种。

In longleaf pine forests, trees grow widely scattered, creating an open, park like environment, more like a savanna than a forest. The trees are not so dense as to block the sun. This openness creates a forest floor that is among the most diverse in the world, where plants such as many-flowered grass pinks, trumpet pitcher plants, Venus flytraps, lavender ladies and pineland bog-buttons grow. As many as 50 different species of wild flowers, shrubs, grasses and ferns have been cataloged in just a single square meter.

在长叶松林中，树木生长广泛分散，创造了一个开放的、类似公园的环境，更像是热带稀树草原而不是森林。树的密度没有大到挡住太阳。这种开放创造了一个世界上最多样化的森林地面，植物如多花的草粉，喇叭猪笼草，维纳斯捕蝇草，薰衣草女士和松原沼泽钮扣生长。仅在一平方米的土地上就记录了多达 50种不同种类的野花、灌木、草和蕨类植物。

Once, nearly 92 million acres of longleaf forest flourished from Virginia to Texas, the only place in the world where it is found. By the turn of the 21st century, however, virtually all of it had been logged, paved or farmed into oblivion. Only about 3 percent of the original range still supports longleaf forest, and only about 10,000 acres of that is uncut old-growth-the rest is forest that has regrown after cutting. An estimated 100,000 of those acres are still vanishing every year. However, a quiet movement to reverse this trend is rippling across the region. Governments, private or ganisations (including NWF) and individual conservationists are looking for ways to protect and preserve the remaining longleaf and to plant new forests for future generations.

曾经，从弗吉尼亚到德克萨斯州，将近 9200万英亩的长叶林曾经繁茂生长，这是世界上唯一发现这种植物的地方。然而，到了 21世纪初，几乎所有的森林都被砍伐、铺砌或耕种而被遗忘。只有约 3%的原始森林仍然保持着长叶林的生长，其中只有约 1万英亩是原始森林，其余的是砍伐后重新生长的森林。据估计，每年仍有 10万英亩的土地在消失。然而，一场旨在逆转这一趋势的平静运动正在该地区掀起波澜。政府、私人或组织(包括 NWF)和个人自然资源保护者正在寻找保护和保护剩余长叶植物的方法，并为后代种植新的森林。

Figuring out how to bring back the piney woods also will allow biologists to help the plants and animals that depend on this habitat. Nearly two-thirds of the declining, threatened or endangered species in the southeastern United States are associated with longleaf. The outright destruction of longleaf is only part of their story, says Mark Danaher, the biologist for South Carolina’s Francis Marion National Forest. He says the demise of these animals and plants also is tied to a lack of fire, which once swept through the southern forests on a regular basis.” Fire is absolutely critical for this ecosystem and for the species that depend on it,” says Danaher.

弄清楚如何恢复松树林也将使生物学家能够帮助依赖这一栖息地的动植物。在美国东南部正在减少的、受到威胁的或濒危的物种中，近三分之二与长叶植物有关。南卡罗莱纳弗朗西斯马里恩国家森林的生物学家马克·达纳赫说，对长叶树木的彻底破坏只是他们故事的一部分。他说，这些动植物的死亡还与缺乏火灾有关。火灾曾经定期横扫南部森林。Danaher说:“对于这个生态系统和依赖它的物种来说，火绝对是至关重要的。”

Name just about any species that occurs in longleaf and you can find a connection to fire. Bach-man’s sparrow is a secretive bird with a beautiful song that echoes across the longleaf flat woods. It tucks its nest on the ground beneath clumps of wiregrass and little bluestem in the open under story, But once fire has been absent for several years, and a tangle of shrubs starts to grow, the sparrows disappear. Gopher tortoises, the only native land tortoises east of the Mississippi, are also abundant in longleaf. A keystone species for these forests, its burrows provide homes and safety to more than 300 species of vertebrates and invertebrates ranging from eastern diamondback rattlesnakes to gopher frogs, If fire is suppressed, however, the tortoises are choked out.” If we lose fire,” says Bob Mitchell, an ecologist at the Jones Center, ”we lose wildlife.”

说出几乎所有长叶植物的名字，你就能发现它们和火有关。巴赫曼的麻雀是一种神秘的鸟，有着美妙的歌声，回荡在长叶平坦的树林中。它把巢埋在地上，埋在一丛丛的铁丝草和矮树下的小青石下面，但是一旦火消失了好几年，一丛灌木开始生长，麻雀就消失了。地鼠陆龟是密西西比河东部唯一的本土陆龟，长叶陆龟也很丰富。作为这些森林的关键物种，它的洞穴为 300多种脊椎动物和无脊椎动物提供了家园和安全，从东部菱形背响尾蛇到地鼠蛙，但如果火被扑灭，乌龟就会窒息而死。“如果我们失去了火，”Jones中心的生态学家  Bob Mitchell说，“我们就失去了野生动物。”

Without fire, we also lose longleaf. Fire knocks back the oaks and other woods that can grow up to overwhelm longleaf forests. They are fire forests,” Mitchell says: They evolved in the lightning capital of the eastern United States.” And it wasn’t only lightning strikes that  set the forest aflame.” Native Americans also lit fires to keep the forest open,” Mitchell says.” So did the early pioneers. They helped create the longleaf pine forests that we know today.”

没有火，我们也失去了长叶。大火将橡树和其他可以生长的森林夷为平地。它们是火森林，”米切尔说:“它们是在美国东部闪电之都进化而来的。不仅是闪电把森林点燃了。米切尔说:“印第安人还生火来保持森林的开放。早期的拓荒者也是如此。他们帮助创造了我们今天所知道的长叶松林。

Fire also changes how nutrients flow throughout longleaf ecosystems, in ways we are just beginning to understand. For example, researchers have discovered that frequent fires provide extra calcium, which is critical for egg production, to endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers. Frances James, a retired avian ecologist from Florida State University, has studied these small black-and-white birds for more than two decades in Florida’s sprawling Apalachicola National Forest. When she realised female woodpeckers laid larger clutches in the first breeding season after their territories were burned, she and her colleagues went searching for answers.” We learned calcium is stashed away in woody shrubs when the forest is not burned,” James says. “But when there is a fire, a pulse of calcium moves down into the soil and up into the long leaf.”  Eventually, this calcium makes its way up the food chain to a tree-dwelling species of ant, which is the red-cockaded’s favorite food. The result: more calcium for the birds, which leads to more eggs, more young and more woodpeckers.

火还改变了营养物质在长叶生态系统中的流动方式，这种方式我们才刚刚开始了解。例如，研究人员发现，频繁的火灾为濒危的红冠啄木鸟提供了额外的钙，而钙对产蛋至关重要。弗朗西斯·詹姆斯(Frances James)是佛罗里达州立大学(Florida State University)退休的鸟类生态学家，20多年来，她一直在佛罗里达州广阔的阿巴拉契科拉国家森林(Apalachicola  NationalForest)研究这种黑白相间的小型鸟类。当她意识到雌性啄木鸟在它们的领地被烧毁后的第一个繁殖期产下了更大的爪子时，她和同事们开始寻找答案。“我们了解到，当森林没有被烧毁时，钙会被储存在木本灌木中，”詹姆斯说。“但当发生火灾时，一股钙脉冲向下进入土壤，向上进入长叶。”最终，这些钙通过食物链进入一种栖息在树上的蚂蚁，这是红冠蚂蚁最喜欢的食物。结果是:鸟类得到了更多的钙，这就导致了更多的鸟蛋、更多的幼鸟和更多的啄木鸟。

Today, fire is used as a vital management tool for preserving both longleaf and its wildlife. Most of these fires are prescribed burns, deliberately set with a drip torch. Although the public often opposes any type of fire-and the smoke that goes with it-these frequent, low-intensity burns reduce the risk of catastrophic conflagrations.” Forests are going to burn,” says Amadou Diop, NWF’s southern forests restoration manager.” It’s just a question of when. With prescribed burns, we can pick the time and the place.”

今天，火被用来作为一种重要的管理工具来保护长叶和它的野生动物。这些火大多数是规定的燃烧，故意用滴管点燃。尽管公众经常反对任何类型的火灾，以及伴随火灾而来的烟雾，但这些频繁的、低强度的火灾减少了灾难性火灾的风险。“森林将被烧毁，”NWF南方森林恢复经理 Amadou Diop说。“这只是时间问题。”有了规定的烧伤，我们可以选择时间和地点。

Diop is spearheading a new NWF effort to restore longleaf.” It’s a species we need to go back to, he says. Educating landowners about the advantages of growing longleaf is part of the program, he adds, which will soon be under way in nine southern states.” Right now, most longleaf is on public land,” says Jerry McCollum, president of the Georgia Wildlife Federation.” Private land is where we need to work,” he adds, pointing out that more than 90 percent of the acreage within the historic range of longleaf falls under this category.

Diop是  NWF恢复  longleaf的先锋。他说:“这是一个我们需要回归的物种。他补充说，教育土地所有者种植长叶植物的好处是该项目的一部分，该项目很快将在美国南部的 9个州实施。“现在，大部分的长叶是在公共土地上，”乔治亚野生动物联合会主席 Jerry McCollum说。“我们需要在私人土地上工作，”他补充说。他指出，在历史悠久的朗利夫地区，90%以上的土地都属于这一类。

Interest among private landowners is growing throughout the South, but restoring longleaf is not an easy task. The herbaceous layer-the understory of wiregrasses and other plants-also needs to be re-created. In areas where the land has not been chewed up by farming, but con-verted to loblolly or slash pine plantations, the seed bank of the longleaf forest usually remains viable beneath the soil. In time, this original vegetation can be coaxed back. Where agriculture has destroyed the seeds, however, wiregrass must be replanted. Right now, the expense is prohibitive, but researchers are searching for low-cost solutions.

在整个南方，私人土地所有者的兴趣正在增长，但恢复 longleaf并非易事。草本层——铁丝草和其他植物的下层——也需要重建。在那些土地没有被耕种所侵蚀，而是变成了长叶林或松林的地区，长叶林的种子库通常在土壤下仍能存活。随着时间的推移，这些原始植被可以被诱导回去。然而，在农业破坏了种子的地方，必须重新种植铁丝草。目前，费用高昂，但研究人员正在寻找低成本的解决方案。

Bringing back longleaf is not for the short-sighted, however. Few of us will be alive when the pines being planted today become mature forests in 70 to 80 years. But that is not stopping longleaf enthusiasts,” Today, it’s getting hard to find longleaf seedlings to buy,” one of the private landowners says.” Everyone wants them. Longleaf is in a resurgence.”

然而，长叶公司的回归并不适合目光短浅的人。当今天种植的松树在 70到  80年后变成成熟的森林时，我们当中很少有人还活着。但这并没有阻止长叶爱好者，“今天，很难找到长叶幼苗来购买，”一位私人土地所有者说。“每个人都想要。”Longleaf正在复苏。