Prairie Environmental Changes

The article, Will environmental changes reinforce the impact of global warming on the prairie-forest border of Central North America?, focused on the changes or drivers that cause the forest to shift northward. Since the Central Northern forest is sensitive to climate change. Winter has become milder, and human activities contributed to the global warming. Frelich and Reich (2009) predicted that the northward shift of biomes and tree ranges and could resulting in potential loss of forests of land in Central North America. This estimation is twice as large as the state of California. Their article explores the important drivers of changing along the prairie-forest border in Central North America and how the interactions of warming of climate

Insects such as the mountain pine beetle have the potential to cause major mortality in the pine tree forest. Earthworms are also another problem linked to dieback and reproductive failure in mature northern hardwood trees, and loss of native plant species because they are invading the forests along the prairie-forest.

The CO2 fertilization and nitrogen deposition help improve the forest a little bit, but could not overall eliminate the problems. Higher concentration of CO2 somewhat offset the impact of droughts, and nitrogen deposition offset the impacts of earthworm invading the soil. However the deer population and natural occurrence like storms or fire would not be prevented.

Deer has repopulated and there is a concern of deer overabundance. As Frelich and Reich (2009), pointed out that the white tailed deer are eating the seedlings of certain species of trees such as the northern white cedar, yellow birch, northern red oak, eastern hemlock and white pine because in the winter there is no herbs available. The expansion of deer population as winter becomes