Warmer seasons and later onset of cold weather in the Northeast appears to be changing the chemical composition of leaves that fall from hardwood trees, reducing the amount of nitrogen available in the soil. Less soil nitrogen (actually, a different carbon-nitrogen ratio) makes it harder for new plants to grow.
That’s the conclusion of experiments on litter – the stuff that trees drop in the forest, not the stuff that humans drop – by the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation in New Hampshire. The study, published in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research, is here.
The details are, as always, nuanced – elevation makes a difference, for example – but it’s another ripple affect from human-altered climate.
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