Howdy from the original poster
Yes, I did receive a lot of helpful responses, most (all?) of which were
posted to the list, to some of which I responded outside the list.
And yes, my original question was poorly worded in the sense that I did
not
mean to imply post oak was not native to Texas. However, that seemed to
have
sparked an (unintended) interesting discussion about what the word means,
prompting me to plead for excusing my non-ecologist ignorance on this
forum.
We are most interested in any insight you all here might have on why post
oak -- at least the trees/leaves we measured last year -- performed (in
terms of photosynthetic activity and heat + drought tolerance) better than
water oak and southern red oak. There may be multiple reasons for that,
but
one thing we (naively?) thought about was whether post oak is/has better
adapted to the Texas climate, which one could argue might stem from it
having grown there for much longer than the other species ("native" vs.
"not
so native" ?). In that aspect, some of the links circulated are not that
helpful. It appears to me that e.g. the USDA calls anything native that
occurs in a state, albeit in niches, and then calls the species native to
the whole state. As pointed out by one reply, post oak grows in a large
area
of Texas named after it, because it is the dominant tree species there.
The
other two species do not have that distinction.
I received some anecdotal evidence from foresters -- related to
mortality --
that confirm that post oak seems better adapted to Texas, but I am looking
for hard evidence, if any.
Thanks for your patience reading through this post, and thanks everyone
for
replying to my original inquiry ... though poorly worded.
Best,
Gunnar
On 3/17/2012 05:41 PM, Wayne Tyson wrote:
Ecolog:
Resetarits makes some excellent points.
While I quite understand the resistance to using such "terms" as
"squishy," I was trying to make a between-the-lines point: The term needs
to
match the phenomenon.
Any term should meet the test of relevance and clarity, and everyone
should recognize that "everything is context." Post-oaks, for example,
worked as a term in my childhood because "everybody" "knew" what post-oak
meant. "Native to Texas" is true, too, provided that the reader has the
sense to know that that means that post-oaks occur within the political
boundaries known as Texas. Exceptions, as necessary, should be noted by
the
writer where necessary, and by the reader, with the exception that a more
elaborate explanation is necessary by the writer if the reader does not
understand that the statement does not mean that post-oak is ONLY native
to
Texas.
We should hear from the original poster regarding whether or not the
original question has received relevant responses. I personally found the
question vague, and therefore suspicious. But it did awaken some thoughts
that should prove useful--IF there is follow-up to a conclusion, however
conditioned and provisional.
WT
--
-----------------------------------
Dr. Gunnar W. Schade
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
Texas A&M University
1104 Eller O&M Building
College Station, TX 77843-3150
e-mail: g...@geos.tamu.edu
http://georesearch.tamu.edu/blogs/oaktreeproject/
-----------------------------------
"Climate change detonates the ideological scaffolding
on which contemporary conservatism rests. There is
simply no way to square a belief system that vilifies
collective action and venerates total market freedom
with a problem that demands collective action on an
unprecedented scale and a dramatic reining in of the
market forces that created and are deepening the
crisis."
Naomi Klein, November 2011
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