Acorns Disappear Across the Country 474
Hugh Pickens writes "Botanist Rod Simmons thought he was going crazy when couldn't find any acorns near his home in Arlington County, Virginia. 'I'm used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it's something I just didn't believe,' said Simmons. Then calls started coming in about crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill. Simmons and Naturalist Greg Zell began to do some research and found Internet discussion groups, including one on Topix called 'No acorns this year,' reporting the same thing from as far away as the Midwest up through New England and Nova Scotia. 'We live in Glenwood Landing, N.Y., and don't have any acorns this year. Really weird,' wrote one. 'None in Kansas either! Curiouser and curiouser.' The absence of acorns could have something to do with the weather and Simmons has a theory about the wet and dry cycles. But many skeptics say oaks in other regions are producing plenty of acorns, and the acorn bust is nothing more than the extreme of a natural boom-and-bust cycle. But the bottom line is that no one really knows. 'It's sort of a mystery,' Zell said."
Weird... (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember one year growing up the Oaks in my backyard didn't produce any acorns, instead they produced these strange green globes that were soft almost like a grape except more spherical and speckled. When I split one open there was something akin to what cotton wood trees put out or dandylions, a soft fluffy thing. I wonder if the Oaks have a secondary seed production mechanism? Is that what I saw? that was probably 20 years or more ago so the memory is a little hazy. I wonder if the oaks are producing those things? or nothing at all.
Nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)
I have noticed this cycle in the Boston area over the last 20 years. The squirrel population will follow the acorn yield. Some years there are very few squirrels about, and the chipmunk population seems to boom. Then the squirrels will have a great year and have too many little ones. Some of the babies will end up on the ground, pushed out by the others.
Don't let your kids adopt them or talk you into taking them to a wildlife shelter. Believe me. All you have to do is put them back into a tree in a basket. The mommy squirrel will come find them and take them home by the scruff like a kitten.
Have the bees gone too? (Score:1, Interesting)
Hi
What has your bee popluation been like this year?
Acorn boom (Score:4, Interesting)
For the record, there was an acorn boom a couple of years ago that was responsible for an increase of Lyme disease. Apparently, when you get more acorn, you get more ticks the next season.
Plenty of Acorns in Northern NJ (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Let me guess... (Score:3, Interesting)
Although I tend to side with the thesis of anthropogenic climate change I agree that there are too many alarmists who will draw an instant connection between occurances such as this and "global warming".
That said, I would have hoped that you could dig up some better references to support your post; Miranda Divine is an ignoarmus and Kieth Windshuttle has only slightly more credibility than David Irving.
...to what the majority of comments to this article will be related, given the delicious quotes like this in the article:'
Of course, these will be ignored on page two of the story:
I know it's not a popular sentiment here, but Beware the church of climate alarm [smh.com.au].
Re:Weird... (Score:5, Interesting)
Those were probably marble galls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_marble_gall); I find them a lot, too. They are produced in addition to acorns, though.
Re:acorns going down hill for 2 years (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't believe how a little farmers' knowledge sends today's kids into desperate panic.
These editors think they are smart because they can program, yet a little thing like this requires PhD climatology research to explain to them. (And some sort of political action no doubt.)
It's cyclical and difficult to predict (Score:3, Interesting)
There are really two groups of oaks: the red and the white oaks.
The white oaks are generally preferred by most small animals (and deer!), as their acorns are lower in tannins and produced much more regularly (a good crop approximately every other year, and less difference between a good year and a bad year).
Red oaks have a less palatable acorn and can go up to 7 years between heavy mast years (with up to a 135x difference between a bad and a good year).
Oddly, with all the research done on the topic, there's little that can be done to predict a future crop, as cyclic production varies so widely and seems dependant on such a myriad of factors. In areas heavily dominated by oaks, we still even have to "wait and see" for a harvest... otherwise it's a game of roulette, and you might have such poor production you don't get a forest of oak back at all (but red maple is a whole other can of worms).
Sam
Re:Let me guess... (Score:1, Interesting)
Well, having 2 huge oak trees in my back yard, let me preface this comment by stating that I had plenty of acorns this last season (I would guess no more or less than usual for the last 15 years).
Now on to speculation: lack of bees.
Perhaps there is a correlation between the absence of bees and the absence of acorns.
Actually its a normal occurence (Score:5, Interesting)
Every so many years the Oak Trees cut off production of acorns. It has been documented and studied somewhat. I remember reading a scientific article about it in my bio class. The thinking is that there is a codependent relationship between Oak trees and squirrels. The oak trees depend on squirrels for new oak trees (squirrels disperse and plant seeds and forget where some of them are) and the squirrels depend largely on the acorns for food. the Acorn production increases year to year, creating a population increase for the squirrels. (stable food = more babies, more babies that survive) This goes on until there is a population boom of squirrels. At about this time the oak trees halt acorn production, producing a mass die off of squirrels. From the human point of view this seems highly ungrateful of the oak tree. After all the squirrels are busy helping the trees reproduce and now the trees repay the squirrels by making them starve. But the thinking is that if the oak trees didn't do this the squirrel population would reach an equilibrium with the oak tree population's acorn production. Each and every (or nearly every) acorn would get eaten, and next to none of the acorns would result in new oak trees. This local population of oak trees would die out. So it is only the oak trees that are "underhanded" that survive and make new trees. It shouldn't be hard to find more information on this; probably under ecology literature.
OK, natural science geek here (Score:5, Interesting)
I chose trees as my area of natural science geekdom, because I couldn't stand those snotty birders who take a glance at a streak through the trees that an ordinary mortal couldn't narrow down to "bird" then say something like, "Ah, a Stimpson's downy breasted tit." Trees stand still long enough to put an identification to an objective test.
Oak species often display yearly variations in acorn production. This may be helpful in that you want surplus acorns from the point of view of squirrels; producing lots of acorns every year means you get lots of squirrels. Producing a bumper crop every three or four years and a small crop otherwise maximizes the number of surplus acorns you make.
I've heard some say that White Oaks (with smoothly rounded leaf lobes) have three to four year cycles and Red Oaks (with pointy veins that stick out past the end of the leaf lobes) are acyclic. I've also heard the opposite, that White Oaks produce acorns every year and Red Oaks have longer cycles of five or even six years. My own experience is that the White Oaks I know produce bumper crops ever several years, and the Red Oaks seem to produce reliably every year. However, individual trees often vary considerably from the normal habit of their species. In my experience the yearly variations in the Red Oaks I know are small, and the acorns produced are always extremely bitter, however some Red Oaks seem to produce acorns like White Oaks: sweet, and in bumper crops.
That said, the Red Oaks in my yard have for the last fourteen years produced healthy crops of extremely bitter acorns every year. I've lived in this house fifteen years and every year, like clockwork, there has been a night in early November where I've woken up to a continual refrain of "pok-pok-pok-tumble", as the oaks shed the bulk of their acorns in one day.
It didn't happen this year. This article made me go out an look, and the tree is completely bare and there is very little acorn debris around the tree or the gutters.
Weird.
Still, the Northern Red Oak species is reported by some as having long annual crop cycles, and nobody really knows what might trigger a good or bad year. It stands to reason that trees in an area ought to have some kind of climatic trigger for coordinating their production variations. Otherwise, the winner would be a tree that produces lots of acorns every year.
This could be a situation where a meme gains steam because somebody reports a mysterious lack of acorns, and then others (like me) run out and look at their tree and say, "good lord, there aren't any acorns." Chance are if we'd been paying attention, we'd have noticed that there is occasionally a year in which the trees don't produce many acorns.
It's still a weird feeling, though, to read this story and realize that my trees produced hardly any acorns this year.
If this is real, it may be trees responding to a common climatic cue, a cue which is not necessarily a sign of a widespread disaster (unless you are a squirrel). I'd hypothesize that they ought to have some kind of cue that helps keep the squirrel population in check.
They all came here (Score:3, Interesting)
Oaks dying in Wichita Falls, Texas (Score:1, Interesting)
I had four big oak trees in my yard, at least 40 years old, and two of them died this year and one last year. We've had a wetter and overall cooler past five years of weather in this region. I had a tree guy look at my oaks and he said that there is a fungus called Ceratocystis Fagacearum (Oak Wilt) killing off oak trees in our area and there's nothing really can be done to stop it. It's a tree disease that is normally only around the eastern USA, but the cooler and wetter climate change we've had the past half decade has fostered the spread of the disease westward.
Re:Let me guess... (Score:1, Interesting)
Coal-fired power-stations DO contribute to global warming.
They do? So you have irrefutable evidence that global warming is due to fossil fuel combustion products and not, say, the output of the sun [freerepublic.com]?
The fact is that most of the global warming theories are based on poor evidence and conjecture. I'm not saying that all of the theories are wrong, they might tell some of the tale, but they certainly are not a foregone conclusion. I do agree that we should work to curtail pollution, it certainly won't hurt to have less emissions from power stations and the like, but we shouldn't have irrational, knee-jerk reactions to the use of fossil fuels.
Now mercury levels from coal are a lot more substantiated because they are based on real science. Mercury levels have been measured downwind from power plants and compared to areas that are not downwind from power plants. The levels have also been measured before and after power plants have come online, and also when power plants had downtime. There is a fairly clear correlation between the use of coal and mercury in the environment. That's not to say that we should immediately stop using coal, but we should invest in cleaner coal-burning technology and also look for alternatives, such as nuclear power (which is much more containable than coal).
Re:acorn years (Score:3, Interesting)
Warm weather last January (Score:3, Interesting)
I think a lot of these problems stem back to the ridiculously warm weather we had late last January. It was in the 60s and 70's for nearly a week. Fucked up a lot of my plants and killed many of them once it returned to normal cold a week or so later. I've talked to several people who've had similar problems this year with various plants likely due to that warm spell.
Someone needs to go outside and play (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a bumper crop of acorns on my property this year and last year there were almost none.
Why? Last year we had a late freeze followed by a drought.
The volume of mast crop always varies, but during bad years there's very little production. The people screaming and hollering about it need to go outside more.
So this educated fool has a "theory" about wet and dry cycles, does he? Any rube farmer or hunter out there can tell you that the mast crop is directly related to wet and dry cycles. Any botanist who doesn't know that already shouldn't be able to call himself one.
I guess it's much less fun to understand the workings of nature than it is to lay the blame on a favorite political cause.
Perfect example of scare mongering (Score:1, Interesting)
I own an orchard filled with nut and fruit trees so I thought someone who actually knew what they were talking about should reply to the idiotioc article. Nut trees, like Oaks, vary from year to year in their productivity. Weather does play a part in that (there are a number of other factors though). Last year we had a severe drought here in my area of Missouri and there were almost no acorns. The game wardens I talked to were hoping for a large deer harverst during deer season to minimize the number of deer that starved because of it. This year, however, we had more rain and the ground is absolutely covered with acorns and other nuts.
The guy who wrote the article may be in an area with low nut production this year as may many other people. But, that is not a sign of the end of the world. It has always been that way and it always will.
Re:Let me guess... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think climate scientists don't relish debate, you obviously haven't been to a scientific conference.
What they relish, however, is honest debate by an informed opponent. As opposed to 95% of the so-called "skeptics" out there — like Plimer — who do little but repeat long-discredited misleading or wrong arguments. It's pretty much the same as the evolution-creation "debate". Evolutionary biologists argue all the time about evolutionary theory — witness the whole gradualism vs. punctuated equilibrium debate. But that doesn't mean they relish correcting creationist wackaloons, again and again, every time they drag out the same bad arguments. Bypassing the whole scientific debate in the first place by going straight to the media. The reason why creationists don't engage in real scientific debate is because their arguments are so poor they can't get published. Of course, they then cry that the orthodox gatekeepers are "silencing" them. Pretty much like most of the climate skeptics. There is legitimate scientific debate about, say, whether the equilibrium climate sensitivity to CO2 is closer to the lower or the upper end of the IPCC range. But you hardly ever see any of the real debate. Instead, you see the ridiculously wrong claims like "the geologic record proves that temperature is unrelated to CO2" or "all the global warming is an artifact of urban heat island contamination". It's a shame.
Re:One big (75 foot tall) oak tree in NC (Score:3, Interesting)
Not saying you are wrong, just that your single example is only enough to question the article, not enough to create a theory.
Re:Coming out of an ice age (Score:3, Interesting)
Most people don't realize this but we are actually still in an ice age. The planet goes through natural cycles of cold and hot. Our cold climate is warming, perhaps from anthropogenic disturbances but also perhaps from natural climate change.
Before industrial fossil fuel CO2 emissions, the Holocene has been in a very stable period, neither warming nor cooling, which is actually kind of unusual. Normally it would have been cooled slightly by now.
Sure the globe might be warming faster from CO2 but it will warm regardless we just might have accelerated things a bit.
Why should it warm regardless? As I said, if you go by past interglacials it should probably be cooling. If you go by this interglacial's earlier history, it shouldn't be warming or cooling much. Unless you're proposing that the whole ice age cycle was due to end this time around anyway. What evidence do you have for that? I've never seen that in any of the geological literature.
When all of the ice is "gone" the planet will effectively reboot and start the process all over again. Once the oceans warm up to the point condensation will kick in, extreme storms, and then a massive cooling period.
Again, what is the basis for that? The last time we left an extended greenhouse for an extended ice age (~50 million years ago?), it wasn't because the oceans were too warm or all the ice was gone. (It had been warm with no ice for millions of years before that.) It was more likely due to weathering from the Himalayas drawing CO2 out of the atmosphere when the Indian subcontinent collided with Asia.
The 'naturalists' will be stuck inside their box right up until their extinction occurs.
If you're really so worried about future global cooling, you should be arguing for us to save our greenhouse gases for later when we need them, rather than use them all up now when we don't.
No Pecans Either (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Let me guess... (Score:3, Interesting)
I defy you to reference ANY such data that suggests a causal link from CO2 to temperature change!
What a joke.
I already gave a number of such examples, which are all cited in the IPCC report you claim to have read. Not to mention the basic atomic physics of the greenhouse effect.
I've read nearly everything the IPCC has published, and there is nothing there on this central point except assumptions and models based on assumptions.
Yeah, duh.
All of science is based on assumptions. Then you test the predictions of those assumptions and see whether they agree with what you observe. Then you test the predictions of alternate assumptions and see if they agree.
CO2 change rate FOLLOWS temperature change rate, after a varying lag that averages around 800 years.
... in the specific case of the glacial-interglacial cycle. You can't say the same for other paleoclimate events, such as the PETM, Cenozoic cooling, etc.
Nor does the glacial-interglacial cycle contradict a causal link from CO2 to temperature change (as noted in the Caillon et al. paper which first described this lag). And you cannot explain the magnitude and warming/cooling rate of the glacial-interglacial cycle without the CO2 greenhouse effect.
The IPCC is an organization established for the purpose of influencing public policy and public opinion.
The IPCC is charged with providing a thorough summary of mainstream research, and is specifically forbidden from making policy recommendations.
I'm not saying that the IPCC is necessarily a bad thing in itself. But incorporating IPCC products in a scientific endeavor is a bad thing.
The IPCC does not conduct scientific research. It summarizes existing scientific research. If you want to know what the state of climate science is, the IPCC report is a primary index into the literature.
Re:Let me guess... (Score:2, Interesting)
Pretty much like most of the climate skeptics. There is legitimate scientific debate about, say, whether the equilibrium climate sensitivity to CO2 is closer to the lower or the upper end of the IPCC range. But you hardly ever see any of the real debate.
Funny you should mention real debate over climate sensitivity. That too has been censored by the Cult of Climate Change. [theregister.co.uk]
Question the methodology of the one paper that ALL of the IPCC's global warming theory is based upon... and be shouted down.
Just the Opposite (Score:2, Interesting)
...the solar trend disagrees in rate, timing, and magnitude with the warming since the mid-20th century, although it explains a fair bit of the warming before then.
If by "Solar Record" you mean the sunspot cycle, it is in direct agreement with the increase in warming trends with the latter half of the 20th Century. The number of sunspots is 70% higher on average in the latter half of the last century compared to the first half, and even through comparable time periods in the 19th Century as well. As well, the number of days without sunspots is markedly lower throughout every cycle in the latter half of the 20th Century. Only this year, 2008, the sunspots are down dramatically, along with global temps. Will this be a prolonged trends? I don't know, and can't speculate, but I will be keeping an eye out for a continuing coincidence between sunspots and temperatures. Scientists are only now discovering the link between the solar wind generation and sunspots, as well as a possible mechanism between the solar wind and energy transference to the troposphere.