Are deer responsible for lack of regeneration and biodiversity loss?
While it is easy to point the finger at deer and blame them for our forest regeneration woes, the reality is that our ecosystem issues are fraught with complexity, and also subject to human aesthetic preferences which may or may not be grounded in any sort of biological reality. For example, we may want to see more biodiversity in certain areas because we are used to having seen it there in the past. Yet nature is not static. A condition in which a forest floor was carpeted with wild flowers can rapidly transition into another state as a result of many different processes. As forest succession proceeds, “natural” plant and wildlife species abundance and diversity changes. Certain plant species are shaded out as trees mature and the forest canopy closes. Later successional stages are, by their very nature, less diverse. While we may want to see a certain flower grow somewhere doesn’t mean it “should” be there. Take the case of certain trillium, which are often used as an indicator of hi
