Study finds North Woods losing native species
11:30 PM 6/09/04
Ron Seely Wisconsin State Journal

Biologists at UW-Madison have studied sites in a 1950s plant survey of Wisconsin's North Woods and found a changed world. <

Tramping the same parcels that famed UW-Madison botanist John T. Curtis explored 50 years ago, modern-day botany researchers have found that native species are disappearing at an alarming rate and invasive species are altering the landscape. <

The findings appear in the June issue of the journal Conservation Biology. The study was done by UW-Madison botanist Don Waller and botany students Tom Rooney and David Rogers. <

The work is scientifically important, according to Waller, because it is among the first studies in the world to thoroughly document one example of what many scientists believe is the sixth and latest mass extinction event in the history of the Earth. <

But for those who simply enjoy spending time in Wisconsin's green north country, the study is further proof that the landscape from which the state derives a big part of its identity is changing, perhaps forever. <

"Things are vanishing before our eyes," says Waller. "The natural world is getting less interesting." <

The study blames high deer populations, development and the dramatic spread of non-native species for the changes, although Waller said climate change, the very gradual warming of the north country, may also be a factor. Interestingly, sites surveyed on tribal reservations, where development is better controlled and deer herds are smaller due to year-round hunting, showed an actual increase in native species. <

By studying plant growth on the same 62 sites across northern Wisconsin that Curtis studied, the botanists were able to compare their survey data with the earlier information, kept safely all these years in gray file cabinets in Birge Hall. <

They discovered: <