Oak Forest Ecosystems: Ecology and Management for Wildlife
Edited by William J. McShea and William M. Healy. 2002. The Johns Hopkins University Press,
2715 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218-4363 (www.press.jhu.edu). xiii + 432 p., illus.
$65.00. ISBN 0-8018-6745-2.
Reviewed by Constance Harrington, Research Forester, Pacific Northwest Research Station,
3625-93rd Ave SW, Olympia, WA 98512-9193.
Oaks (Quercus spp.) are important components in many
temperate forest ecosystems, and a new book that synthesizes
information on their management is always of interest. The
intent of this book was to bring together knowledge from a
diverse group of people who study oak forests and make that
information available to those interested in managing those
forests in a sustainable manner for wildlife. I think the authors
have done a good job in achieving their objectives.
The scope of the book is given as North American oaks,
but no information is provided on oaks south of the border of
the United States, and information on oaks in Canada is
limited to their inclusion on range maps or brief mention of
their distribution. This is understandable when looking at the
34 contributors, all of whom are from U.S. institutions. I was
pleasantly surprised, however, to see that the book was not
limited to just the eastern and central states but in fact
includes chapters on California’s oak woodlands and the
evergreen oak woodlands in Arizona and New Mexico. In
addition, many of the chapters on wildlife use of acorns cover
a broad geographic range in their literature review and
discussion.
The book is divided in three parts: patterns and processes
of oak forests, ecology and patterns of acorns, and manage­
ment of oaks for wildlife. All three sections contain many
interesting topics. Some brief examples from part 1: Chapter
2 includes an interesting discussion of mortality rates by
species; Chapter 3 discusses use of paleocharcoal studies;
Chapter 6 does an excellent job in discussing the wildlife
implications of damaging agents; and Chapter 8 points out
how passenger pigeon roost sites may have received enough
nitrogen inputs in the distant past to convert them from a
savanna condition to closed-canopy forests.
Part 2 of the book includes two chapters on acorn produc­
tion, one on nutritional value of acorns, and six chapters
focusing on specific wildlife species or ecological webs. The
chapters on acorn production (“The Behavioral Ecology of
Masting …” and “Dynamics of Acorn Production …”) were
the most technical. I thought the first one (Chapter 9) was
quite creative in its analysis of data from multiple data sets on
acorn production, although due to my ignorance of time
series analyses it did lose me once or twice. Chapter 10
demonstrated that “good” acorn producers cannot be distin­
guished from “poor” producers based on the presence of
acorns during poor years or the absence of acorns during good
crop years. The tapering off of acorn production in larger
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trees (> 76 cm dbh) clearly has implications for target stand
and landscape conditions. The contribution of insect larvae in
acorns to improving nitrogen balance in animal diets (Chap­
ter 11) was not a point I had been aware of but, apparently just
like people, some wildlife species do not eat what is good for
them and discriminate against the infested acorns. Although
many species consume acorns, relatively few bury them just
below the ground surface in a manner that may contribute to
oak regeneration (Chapter 12). There are many other interest­
ing tidbits in this section of the book like: the strong relation­
ship between acorn abundance and antler characteristics of
yearling deer the following year (Chapter 14); the second
most important food (after acorns) to bears in the southern
Appalachians is squaw root, a parasitic plant growing on oak
roots (Chapter 15); and winter food restrictions delay strut­
ting and gobbling of turkeys (Chapter 16).
The third part of the book (on management) was the
shortest but included its share of interesting facts. Chapter 18
mentions that oak leaf litter promotes the occurrence of fire
by remaining curly (and thus it does not compact and decay
rapidly), and Chapter 19 points out how soil moisture in oak
rangelands during the growing season has changed over time
due to the introduction of exotic annuals into the understory.
The final two chapters (“Managing Eastern Oak Forest for
Wildlife” and “Goals and Guidelines for Managing Oak
Ecosystems for Wildlife”) are particularly good in discussing
reasonable goals for both stand and landscape management.
The authors make important points about the need in oak
forests for concentrating on maintaining or improving spe­
cies diversity as opposed to increasing structural diversity
(structural diversity is often given as a management goal for
forests in western North America).
The book is similar to most compilations of chapters
written by multiple authors. That is, some topics are covered
more than once, some are not covered at all, and the coverage
of the same topic is uneven from chapter to chapter. For
example, while I found the discussion of the relationships
between acorn production, mice populations, and gypsy
moths in Chapter 7 (“Gypsy Moths and Forest Dynamics”)
to be very interesting, I appreciated the additional details on
the mice-acorn studies provided in Chapter 11 (“Ecological
Webs Involving Acorns and Mice”) and wondered if it was
necessary to cover the topic in two places. Several authors in
the papers on wildlife or management might have been wise
to leave the discussion of factors influencing acorn produc­
tion to the authors assigned to those topics—acorn produc­
tion was certainly the topic with the greatest overlap among
the chapters. Some chapters were cross-referenced, but the
degree of integration was fairly limited.
Scientific jargon was kept to a minimum level, although
there were a few terms that might send some readers in search
of a dictionary (e.g., volant, murid, parapatric, suscept,
lagomorpha). The book was very well proofed, with almost
no typographical errors (I did wonder if the stated food
equivalence of 16 walnuts and 3 bur oak acorns on p. 260 was
meant to be 16 walnuts and 30 acorns). Some numbers could
have been rounded to fewer decimal places—for example, I
think the tables in Chapter 2 would have been more readable
if the hectares of timberland were reported in whole numbers
rather than to the nearest 0.1 ha. Also, I would have appre­
ciated it if mailing or e-mail addresses had been provided to
facilitate contacting the authors.
The book differs from most others being produced these
days in several respects. First, and most noticeable initially,
is that the book is printed on nonglossy, off-white paper. I
found this to make reading the text very pleasant as the
nonglossy paper eliminated reflections off the pages. The
second difference, which may be partially related to the first,
is in the figures. The book has no photographs, the figures are
all black and white, and some of the figures are not as clear
as they could have been. For example, Figure 2.3 is a map
with a gray scale showing stand size classes; there were
supposed to be three classes but I couldn’t distinguish well
between two of the classes. In addition, the “fuzz” on the map
outline corresponding to the shoreline topography looked the
same as one of the gray scale categories. In general, I was
disappointed in the number and quality of the figures.
In summary, the book contains useful information on
managing oak forests for wildlife, and most of the informa­
tion is presented clearly with an obvious attempt to tie it
specifically to management needs. For example, many
chapters contain management recommendations, and the
chapter summaries are well written to remind the reader of the
main points. From a selfish standpoint, I wished the book had
included more information on oak biology and growth, and
that some of the management examples had included greater
specificity, but overall I think the contributors did an excel­
lent job in discussing the aspects of oak biology relevant to
oak management for wildlife. Oak Forest Ecosystems is
relatively inexpensive for a hard cover book ($65) and merits
space on the bookshelves of people interested in or involved
with the management of oak forests in North America.
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