The Nature of Oaks Quotes

“The water from a 2-inch downpour, for example—more than 54,000 gallons per acre—is captured almost entirely by an oak forest’s leaf litter and the organic humus it creates. Litter and humus don’t hold this water indefinitely, but they do corral it on-site just long enough for it to seep into the ground, replenishing the water table on which so many of us depend. In areas with no leaf litter, the same 2-inch rainstorm causes a flood.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“We cannot casually accept the loss of oaks without also accepting the loss of thousands of other plants and animals that depend on them. Oak declines in the United Kingdom, for example, threaten the survival of some 2,300 other species (Mitchell et al. 2019). Fortunately, there is no reason why we should accept the loss of oaks as inevitable; there is no trick to restoring oak populations, and no shortage of places in which to restore them. If you were to add up the amount of land in various types of built landscapes that is not dedicated to agriculture—suburban developments, urban parks, golf courses, mine reclamation sites, and so forth—it would total 603 million acres, a full 33% of our lower 48 states. We have not targeted these places for conservation in the past, but that was back when our conservation model was based on the notion that humans and their tailings were here and nature was someplace else. That model of mutual exclusion has failed us dismally; there simply are not enough untrammeled places left to sustain the natural world that until now has sustained us. Our only option, then, is to find ways to coexist with other species. That’s right, we must construct ecosystems that contain all their functional parts right where humans abound.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“The end result is that each jay plants somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,360 oak trees every year of its seven-to 17-year life span! It’s no wonder that jays have enabled oaks to move about the earth faster than any other tree species.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“Another misconception is that we don’t need to worry about the local supply of insects because insects are everywhere all the time. If this is true, where do all those insects come from and what do they eat? Do they just appear out of nowhere? Is Aristotle’s theory of spontaneous generation alive and well in our popular culture? I hope not. The fact is that all insects, every last one of them, are produced directly or indirectly by plants. They either eat some plant part, or they eat another animal that ate some plant part. What follows logically, then, is that when we reduce the amount of plants in any given place, we reduce the diversity and abundance of insects. Alarming headlines from around the world are reminding us of the critical linkage between plants and insects; we have removed more than half of the forests on earth and, not surprisingly, insect populations have declined globally by at least 45% since 1979”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“As oaks age they typically lose much of their inner xylem tissue, creating large hollow spaces within their trunks that serve as home to countless creatures, from rare fungi to raccoons, opossums, squirrels, bats, bobcats, and even black bears. We have been led to think that once there are hollow spaces created by rot within a tree trunk, that tree must come down. Not so! Such “rot” is normal and does not affect the living cambium that lies just under the bark of your oak nor the functional strength of the trunk. Hollow trunks are just one feature of ancient oaks that makes them such valuable ecological additions to our landscapes. Beating”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“When we spray a tree to kill caterpillars, we first kill all natural enemies of those caterpillars, which are more susceptible to our insecticides than the target caterpillars. Spraying rarely kills all the caterpillars, so the following year, there is an explosion of caterpillars because there are not enough predators and parasitoids around to keep their numbers down. So we spray again. The predators that eat caterpillars include local birds that were unable to raise young the previous year because we had killed the caterpillars they feed their young. Consequently, each year we spray, there are fewer birds around to control caterpillar populations, and so we spray again. Soon, we are locked into spraying toxins all over our properties every year because we have eliminated the natural controls that kept those caterpillars in check—all this to save trees that are well adapted to spring caterpillar flushes and, unless otherwise stressed, would not have been harmed by the caterpillars in the first place.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“Keep in mind that birds don’t care two whits which tree they forage in as long as there is food there. They do, however, care about foraging efficiently. They cannot afford to waste time and energy searching for food where it doesn’t exist, so they stay in unproductive trees as long as you would shop in Acme if all the shelves were bare—only a few seconds.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“Like oak tissues above the ground, oak root systems are massive and built from carbon. But what makes oaks a particularly valuable tool in our fight against climate change is their relationship with mycorrhizal fungi: mycorrhizae make copious amounts of carbon-rich glomalin, a highly stable glycoprotein that gives soil much of its structure and dark color. Oak mycorrhizae deposit glomalin into the soil surrounding oak roots throughout the life of the tree. Every pound of glomalin produced by oak mycorrhizae is a pound of carbon no longer warming the atmosphere, and glomalin remains in soil for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“When rain falls, it starts its inevitable journey to the sea. If this journey is rapid, the rain carries topsoil and pollutants with it to streams and then rivers, which terminate in the earth’s oceans. If rainwater is slowed by vegetation, more of it seeps into the ground rather than rushing into local streams. Such infiltration not only replenishes water tables but also scrubs the water clean of its nitrogen, phosphorus, and heavy metal pollutants. Moreover, slow and steady discharge from water tables into streams and rivers reduces the destructive pulse of stormwater that scours our tributaries of their biota. By virtue of their copious leaf surface area and large root systems, oaks impede rainwater from the moment it condenses out of clouds. Much of the water intercepted by leafy oak canopies (up to 3,000 gallons per tree annually) evaporates before it ever reaches the ground (Cotrone 2014). All this makes oaks one of our very best tools in responsible watershed management.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“Another common strategy is to play hide and seek with parasitoids; galls with urchin-like spikes do not have one central larval chamber like other galls but rather contain a single larval chamber beneath only one of the many spikes. It’s then up to the parasitoid to discover which is the spike above the actual galler.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“This stabilizes water flow in streams which, in turn, prevents scouring and the destruction of aquatic communities of insects, crustaceans, and fish. Who needs healthy stream communities? Well, who needs plentiful, reliable, clean, fresh water? Everything and everybody! Streams with diverse communities of aquatic insects and crustaceans carry two to eight times less waterborne nitrogen than streams with no aquatic arthropods; they also contain higher levels of dissolved oxygen (Sweeney and Newbold 2014).”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“As water that is held on-site by leaf litter seeps through soil pores on its way to the water table, it is purified. Excessive nitrogen and phosphorus loads that come from lawn and farm fertilizers are filtered out of the water, as are heavy metals, pesticides, oil, and other pollutants.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“The thick mat of leaf litter that characterizes forests with numerous oaks acts like a sponge when it rains and is most valuable when it rains hard (Sweeney and Blaine 2016). The water from a 2-inch downpour, for example—more than 54,000 gallons per acre—is captured almost entirely by an oak forest’s leaf litter and the organic humus it creates. Litter and humus don’t hold this water indefinitely, but they do corral it on-site just long enough for it to seep into the ground, replenishing the water table on which so many of us depend. In areas with no leaf litter, the same 2-inch rainstorm causes a flood.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“I will close this section with actual species counts that I have made in my yard over the past three years. So far, I have recorded 923 species of moths (I haven’t gotten to the butterflies and skippers yet). Of those 923 species, 811 have known host plants; we still have much to learn about what many species eat. Of the 811 species for which we do have host lists, 245 species include oaks in their larval host choices, and 27 species can develop only on oaks. These numbers are probably low because some of the 112 species for which there are no host records will likely turn out to be oak-feeders. We have 59 genera of woody plants on our property, only one of which is Quercus, the oaks. My point is, oaks represent less than 2% of our woody plant diversity but support at least 30% of our moth species. In comparison, of the 811 moths I’ve found so far and whose preferences are known, 129 species (16%) use hickories, 70 species (9%) use viburnums, 49 species (6%) use serviceberries, and just 17 species (2%) use tulip trees. This is good evidence that oaks shine brighter than other plants in their contributions to biodiversity on the national level, the regional level, and even the level of a single yard.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“In most U.S. counties, oaks, cherries, willows, birches, hickories, pines, and maples are producing the vast numbers and types of insects that support animal populations. These tree genera are keystone plants because they play the same support role that the keystone in a Roman arch plays.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“Because trees grown in isolation without competition from other trees for light, water, and nutrients usually grow more massive, achieve a larger crown, and present a grander aesthetic than trees that grow close to other trees, we almost always plant trees as isolated specimens. But this practice invites the very disasters we pray will never happen. In most treed areas of the country, trees grow in forests, not by their lonesome. Yes, each member of the forest is a bit smaller than it would be on its own, but it is also far more stable. Trees that grow at a spacing found in most forests interlock their roots, forming a continuous matrix of large and small roots that is extraordinarily difficult to uproot. When the big winds come, grouped trees may lose a branch or two, or in the extreme winds of a hurricane or tornado, their trunks may even snap off some feet up from the base, but they rarely blow over entirely. With this in mind, an easy way to reduce the risks from treefalls in your yard is to plant trees in twos or threes, maybe on a 6-foot center, creating small groves that the eye will take in as if it were a single tree. Trees planted in this fashion weave that stabilizing web of roots that will hold them upright even in extreme weather. There is a catch, however. You have to plant such trees when they are young. In fact, the smaller the better. This way your trees will have every opportunity to interlock their roots as they grow.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“Oak-inhabiting mistletoes (Phoradendron spp.) are hemiparasites, meaning they are just a little bit parasitic. They photosynthesize 98% of their energy with their own green leaves, but they do sink roots into host branches that penetrate the xylem and suck up some water. Studies on California mistletoe, a hemiparasite on several western oak species, showed that it had no ill effects on its host oaks and acted more like an epiphyte than a parasite (Koenig et al. 2018).”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“Snowy tree crickets have been called temperature crickets because the air temperature can be estimated with surprising accuracy by counting the rate at which they chirp. Although he didn’t mention the species of cricket he worked with, later studies suggest it was the snowy tree cricket that prompted Amos Dolbear to conduct a crude experiment in 1897. While listening to crickets near his home, Dolbear noted that at 60 degrees Fahrenheit, snowy tree crickets made 80 chirps per minute, at 70 degrees they chirped 120 times per minute, and at 50 degrees, they only chirped 40 times per minute. These measurements allowed Dolbear to establish the following relationship: temperature F = 40 + N, where N is the number of chirps per 15 seconds (Dolbear 1897).”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“counties, oaks, cherries, willows, birches, hickories, pines, and maples are producing the vast numbers and types of insects that support animal populations.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees