Why do humans intruduce non-native species into the deciduous forests?
Most often it’s accidental. Privet is a shrub imported from Japan because it makes nice hedge rows. But it escaped and now grows all over the southeastern forests. There are lots of examples like that. And sometimes we don’t even know we’re importing something. Chestnut Blight was brought in to the US in a shipment of Chinese Chestnuts. There are other plants that were imported intentionally. Some oaks were imported because they produce a lot of acorns, which serves as mast for wildlife. But that’s not very common. Most non-native species in the forests of the eastern US were imported for horticultural use and escaped to the woods.
