Sugar Maple: Sweet Forest Icon at Risk
Sugar Maple Facts
- Scientific Name: Acer saccharum
- Range: New England, US
- Status: Not currently listed as threatened or endangered
- Cool fact: During a cold hard winter, sugar maples “recharge” themselves by letting the sap freeze from the inside of the tree out.
- Cool fact: High concentrations of anthocyanins give sugar maple leaves the brilliant reds that dominate New England autumn tree-scape.
- Global warming effects: Sugar maples need hard freezes to thrive. Warm winters leave the trees vulnerable to pests.
- Implications: Ecologically and economically, sugar maples are a keystone of New England life. Sugar maples also provide wildlife habitat for mammals and songbirds.
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The sugar maple is a New England icon. For centuries, the trees' sap has provided a livelihood for generations of farmers.
The sugar maple is also the source of the brilliant autumn reds that make them the jewels of New England's fall landscape, attracting tourists from around the world.
Global Warming Threats
Sugar maples are cold weather trees, built to survive and thrive in the cold, moist New England climate.
A warmer climate poses several threats to sugar maples. First, sugar maples require cold winters to convert the starch it has stored in the summer to sucrose that will promote new buds in the spring. Sugar maples are also vulnerable to climate-induced drought. And, warmer winters have left the trees more vulnerable to infestations.
Warm spells have led to earlier and shorter “sugaring” seasons, the period when the trees' sap is running. Maple syrup is a $65 million per year industry in New England. Foliage tourism, which depends on the maples, is worth billions more.
Some see the northward distribution shift of the maple out of the United States as nearly inevitable.
Wider Implications
It's hard to imagine New England without the sugar maple. It is estimated that one in four trees in Vermont is a sugar maple. If the trees die off, the New England forests will be a dramatically different place.
Sugar maples also provide important habitat for wildlife -- mammals eat the seeds, bark, buds, and leaves of this species; songbirds eat its seeds and nest in its branches and trunk cavities.
Other New England Species at Risk
- Other trees like spruce, birch and fir are expected to decline.
- Cold water fish, including rainbow, brook and brown trout, could be partially or completely eliminated in the White Mountains.
- Marine ecosystems are changing as colder water species, like flounder, are losing out to warmer water species, like scup.
Sources
- http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/acesac/all.html
- http://www.niu.edu/PubAffairs/RELEASES/2007/sept/maples.shtml
- http://www.edf.org/documents/396_GWWhtMtns.pdf
Posted: 11-Jun-2009; Updated: 04-Jun-2009
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