Grasshoppers signal slow recovery of post-agricultural woodlands, study finds [View all]

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http://www.news.wisc.edu/23314

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Grasshoppers signal slow recovery of post-agricultural woodlands, study finds[/font]

Nov. 24, 2014 | by Kelly April Tyrrell

[font size=3]Sixty years ago, the plows ended their reign and the fields were allowed to return to nature — allowed to become the woodland forests they once were.

But even now, the ghosts of land-use past haunt these woods. New research by Philip Hahn and John Orrock at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on the recovery of South Carolina longleaf pine woodlands once used for cropland shows just how long lasting the legacy of agriculture can be in the recovery of natural places.

By comparing grasshoppers found at woodland sites once used for agriculture to similar sites never disturbed by farming, Hahn and Orrock show that despite decades of recovery, the numbers and types of species found in each differ, as do the understory plants and other ecological variables, like soil properties. The findings were published today in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

While several studies have examined the recovery of plant species at such sites, this is the first to examine the impacts of historical agriculture on animals.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12311