What Does a Natural Ecosystem Look Like?
What should be the goal of restoration ecology? Who decides what an ecosystem should look like and how it should function? Most forests that remain in the U.S. are very different in age structure and species composition from their pre-Columbian conditions. Fire suppression as a forest management tool has changed the character of forests, especially those in the Southeast, the Southwest and California. These drier forests evolved in the presence of frequent grass fires started by lightning. Every year or two a grass fire would burn the dry grasses, tree litter, and small trees and brush, effectively clearing out the under- story of the forest of fuels for future fires. These frequent, low intensity fires did not usually burn hot enough or long enough to damage mature trees or the forest soils. Fire scars on cores taken from a 500 year old ponderosa pine for example, have shown that they have lived through as many as 200 low intensity fires. Such fire-adapted forests had a different look
