4/8/2024 0 Comments Vermont maple tree types![]() ![]() On one hand, part of our job is to manage forests for great wildlife habitat. While lots of mast in the woods means that our wildlife will be in better shape going into the winter, there are also unfortunate side-effects mast years increase the populations of rodents and deer, which transport and host ticks and contribute to the spread of tick-borne diseases.įoresters are on both sides of this push-pull between wildlife and mast-producing trees. A local example of this is when sugar maple, white pine, red oak, red and white spruce and others all “masted” simultaneously in 2017, leading in 2018 in Chittenden County and beyond to an extreme abundance of squirrels. Populations of many wildlife species reliably spike following a mast year. In some parts of the world, mast coordination between trees of a given species may stretch for hundreds or even thousands of miles. How tree species coordinate mast years is still somewhat of a mystery, but this “synchrony” is probably aided by some combination of chemical signals passed through the air or through underground root/fungal connections and weather cues. The key to this strategy is coordination-it works only if everyone does it at once. The intervals at which these “mast years” occur varies by species, from red oaks (every two to three years) to sugar maple (every two to five years) to red spruce (every three to eight years). This method allows trees to “starve” the predators of their seed for several years, lowering their populations, and then overwhelm them with more mast than they can eat. Instead of producing mast every year they produce it at irregular intervals, withholding production for several years and then producing a massive abundance of seed. Trees that produce mast, like oaks, spruces, maples, ash and pines, have developed a clever strategy for dealing with this. Once they fall to the ground about 98 percent of them succumb to a similar fate, eaten by deer, bear, squirrels, turkeys and pretty much everything else in the woods. In the two years that it takes red oak acorns to develop and mature on the tree, about 50 percent of them are parasitized, eaten or otherwise destroyed. While squirrels, other mammals and even blue jays help spread them far and wide, acorns are such a valuable food source that few of them ever get to sprout. Mast-producing trees have a love-hate relationship with wildlife-they may rely on birds and animals to disperse their seeds but can suffer if too many of them are eaten or destroyed. While there are many green plants, insects and other seasonal treats to eat in the summertime, many wildlife species rely on mast in the late summer and fall to fatten up for the winter or to migrate. “Soft mast” are fruits and berries like blackberries, blueberries and apples. ![]() “Hard mast” are nut-like seeds, such as acorns, hickory nuts, beech nuts and beaked hazelnuts (our native hazelnut). ![]() “Mast” are the fruits, seeds and nuts of trees and shrubs, which are eaten by wildlife. Acorns, the fruit of oak trees, are the most visible of our tree seeds, but they’re just one example of “mast.” If you’ve been walking through the woods this late summer, you’ve probably noticed acorns in the treetops, hanging from low branches, littering the ground.
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