Major

Biology

Faculty Mentor

Benjamin Lee, ETSU

Abstract

Trees provide many important products and services to humans. In particular, tree growth is critical to carbon storage, air and water quality, and helps determine demographic processes like population growth and reproductive success. Importantly, tree growth is sensitive to both abiotic (environmental) and biotic factors and is vulnerable to ecological disturbances. Understanding how tree populations respond to disturbances, like invasive pests, is therefore crucial to formulating timely and effective forest management practices.

Here, I used tree ring analysis to investigate how competition for water between neighboring trees changes following the decline of Eastern and Carolina Hemlock(ECH) trees due to the introduction of an invasive pest – the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA). I expected to find that when hemlock trees have died due to HWA surrounding the focal tree, they will release it from competition for water and allow it to grow more annually.

Forests are complex systems comprised of a network of organisms, big and small, that depend on each other to cycle nutrients and provide habitats, food, and water for all that live there. When a specific species suddenly stops being a part of that system, it creates a ripple effect throughout the network. Loss of this specific tree species means the loss of the special services it provides. Organisms that depend on living hemlock trees may be threatened following the decline of hemlock populations. The results from this study will give us insight into how hemlock death effects neighboring tree growth and how forests respond to pest disturbance.

Document Type

Culminating Research Project

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