Esther Crompton
Biography
During my final semester as a senior at Coastal Carolina University (CCU) I wrote “The
Longleaf Pine as Ecosystem of Native Genius” for my ENGL 329: Autobiography, Journal, &
Memoir with Dr. Keaghan Turner. Since then I graduated CCU with a bachelors in English and a minor in Biology. Shortly after graduating I proudly decided to return to CCU to continue my education and am currently enrolled the university’s Master’s in Writing graduate program.

Esther Crompton
The Longleaf Pine an Ecosystem of Native Genius
Abstract
This essay analyzes how Janisse Ray, in her book “Ecology of a Cracker Childhood,” unravels the complex adaptations, interactions, and relationships of the longleaf pine ecosystem. So that we as a species can come to view the abiotic and biotic features of the longleaf pine ecosystem as native geniuses. in a particular physical environment, interacting with it and with each other” (ecosystem, 2014.).
It is hard to appreciate the complexity and richness the term ecosystem holds by looking at its definition. Its meaning is too broad, to all-encompassing, to cling on to, and to adhere meaning from.
The term ecosystem
1
refers to “a biological system composed of all the organisms found
1 An ecosystem is an environment of any spatial scale, from the ocean to your small intestines, and the past, present, and future interactions between all biotic organisms, and abiotic factors of the biological system of that environment. Biotic refers to all the living components of an ecosystem such as grass, trees, foxes, bacteria, deer and so forth. Abiotic refers the chemical and physical nonliving components of an ecosystem such as fire, wind, climate, oxygen, nitrogen, water, weather rocks, minerals and so forth.

Esther Crompton
Figure 1. Species’ interaction networks at Norwood Farm,
Somerset, UK. The entire network of networks is shown at top left
(in which each circle represents one species), and quantitative visualizations are shown for each of the seven quantified individual networks (in which each block is a species, and the width of blocks of each color represents relative abundance). Details of the networks are given in table S1 and (14). Dark green and light green circles and blocks indicate noncrop and crop plants, respectively, whereas other colors indicate animal groups. Scale bars indicate the abundance of animal taxa. Plants are scaled in proportion to their interactions with animals in each network ( Pocock, Evans, &
Memmott, 2012).These diagrams only illustrate the complex networks between the biotic community of Norwood Farm, not the entire ecosystem .
The term ecosystem
2
refers to “a biological system composed of all the organisms found in a particular physical environment, interacting with it and with each other” (ecosystem, n.). It is hard to appreciate the complexity and richness the term ecosystem holds by looking at its definition. Its meaning is too broad, to all-encompassing, to cling on to, and to adhere meaning from.
The types of ecosystems, such as the longleaf pine ecosystem, can be named, but these labels of identification tell us little of what exists and what has been lost. The longleaf pine
2 An ecosystem is an environment of any spatial scale, from the ocean to your small intestines, and the past, present, and future interactions between all biotic organisms, and abiotic factors of the biological system of that environment. Biotic refers to all the living components of an ecosystem such as grass, trees, foxes, bacteria, deer and so forth. Abiotic refers the chemical and physical nonliving components of an ecosystem such as fire, wind, climate, oxygen, nitrogen, water, weather rocks, minerals and so forth.

Esther Crompton ecosystem “once occupied an estimated 37 million hectares in the southeastern United States”
(Shibu, Jokela, & Miller. 3). Presently it “ occupies less than 1 million hectares,” a decline primarily due to human clear-cutting, and fire eliminating practices (Shibu, et al., 2006). We cannot grasp what has been lost by these words alone. We must be told the secrets of the longleaf pine ecosystem and the rich, complex relationships it holds in order to understand what has been lost. Ecology of a Cracker Childhood is a story that reveals the forest’s secrets by examining the native genius adaptations, interactions, and relationships of the longleaf pine ecosystem. So that we as a species can understand what has been lost. Ecology of a Cracker Childhood is the story of the ecosystem ecology
3
of the longleaf pine.
In the chapter “Native Genius” Janisse Ray (1999) uses Joe Grams explanation of native geniuses to define the term in the following way: “Native geniuses are ‘able to take the materials and technology at hand and solve complex problems’” (p. 89). The chapter “ Built by Fire” is used to tell the creation myth of the longleaf pine species that “fell in love with a place that belonged to lightning” (Ray, 1999, p. 35). The complex problems the longleaf pine and other species face in the tale originate from the difficulties of finding a way to survive and adapt in a land where the “fury and constancy of lightening knew no end” (Ray, 1999, p. 37). The materials and technologies are the forces of fire, the environment, the biological community, behavioral and physiological adaptions, and the relationships they create.
In order for the seeds of longleaf pines to germinate, they must come into contact with mineral soil (Shibu et al., 2006). This can become problematic because the size of the female cones often prevents them from penetrating the vegetative undergrowth and reaching the mineral
3 “ Ecosystem ecology studies the links between organisms and their physical environment within an Earth System context”
(Chapin, Matson, & Mooney, 2002, p. 3)

Esther Crompton soil (Shibu et al., 2006). The answer to the problem is fire. The lightning-ignited fires, which peak in May and June, expose the mineral soil for a few months by eliminating the flammable vegetative undergrowth (Earely, 2004, p. 23). The longleaf pine drops its seeds from September to December, which is the time period when the mineral soil is still exposed, and the time when naturally occurring fires are least likely to happen (Earley, 2004, p. 23). Longleaf pine seeds do not waste this timed window of opportunity. The seeds are “loaded with enough moisture and nutrients to sprout almost immediately on fire-cleared mineral soil and begin its taproot growth before winter” (Earely, 2004, p. 23). The presence of fire and the time period in which the longleaf drops its seeds allows them to germinate, and escape fires.
Once the seed germinates it enters into the grass stage of development “ where root growth is favored, and the top remains a tuft of needles” (Outcalt, 2002, p. 48). In the grass stage, longleaf pines devote energy to producing extensive root system and root collars, which allows the seedlings to sprout from the root collar if their top is killed (Shibu et al., 2006). The extensive root system is created in order to provide the longleaf with a system that can gather and store the nutrients needed to accelerate stem growth to a height where survival from fire is possible (Carey, 1992).
Janisse Ray describes these adaptations in a way that presents the longleaf pine as a native genius who is capable of solving the complex problems of surviving in a land ruled by lightning. In the creation story, the longleaf pine uses fire as a technology and tool to solve the problem of reproduction and increase its offspring chances of survival. After surviving fire and lightning for many years the old dying tree releases its “mast of cones filled with seeds” lettings the wind spread them once “the mineral soil was laid bare by fire” (Ray, 1999, p. 36). Fire, a tool of lightning meant to rid the longleaf from the land, is being used by the tree to build up its

Esther Crompton population. The longleaf pine uses the abiotic factors of time, wind, fire, soil, and its cones and seeds, biological materials, to ensure that its offspring survives.
Lightning notices that the longleaf seeds need fire to germinate “ but lightning was not worried. Kindling the whole place didn’t take much effort…So if the seeds began to grow, lightning would burn them.” (Ray, 1999, p. 36). If the longleaf grew lightning would set them aflame, so the longleaf learned to look like grass, adapted to the heat of fires, and grew beneath the ground:
Greenhorn pines learned to lay low, sometimes for five or six years, drilling a taproot farther and farther into the moist earth, surviving the fast burning, low intensity fires of lightning’s wrath by huddling, covering their terminal buds with a tuft of long needles. Sometimes the buds steamed and crackled inside their bonnets.
Young trees that mimicked grass survived fire. That low, they didn’t look like trees
(Ray, 1999, p. 37).
In this passage Janisse Ray references how the longleaf uses the material of its own needles, and the biological technology of adaptation to create a steaming bonnet of protection to guard its terminal bud
4
from the “low intensity fires of lightings wrath” (Ray, 1999, p. 37). As fire burns from the tips of needles towards the terminal bud, water is vaporized (Carey, 1992). The steam acts to reflect heat away from the terminal bud and extinguishes the fire (Carey, 1992). While the longleaf pine mimics grass with its low lying and pine needle tufts it uses the material of its roots and its ability to adapt, to create deep taproot systems that will store and provide the nutrients it needs when it exits the grass stage (Shibu et al., 2006). The nutrients stored in the deep taproot
4 The terminal bud is of vital importance because it houses the apical meristem which is responsible for the primary growth of the plant (Plant 2014).

Esther Crompton enabling the longleaf to shoot up to a safe height where its terminal bud will be out of reach from the fire. The increase in height is essential because once the longleaf progresses out of the grass stage and begins stem elongation its ability sprout a new top after one dies diminishes (Shibu et al., 2006). Using the nutrients, the materials its roots have granted it access to, the longleaf pine can thicken “the bark of their trunks,” “cast themselves upward, to the height of a yard or more in on season,” all so that “when the fires came again they could withstand the heat and their terminal bud would be out of flame’s reach” (Ray, 1999, p. 37). The longleaf pine is using its native genius adaptions to build itself to survive the fire, a trick that many other tree species cannot perform.
When lightning strikes tinder for the fire is “provided by long, linear, and often overlapping and of bunch grasses (Aristida spp., Andropogon spp., Sorghastrum spp.,
Schizachyrium spp., and others) and the long, resinous needles of longleaf pine ensured that fires ignited readily and spread quickly across the open landscape” (Van Lear, Carroll, Kapeluck, &
Johnson, 2005). Longleaf pine communities can survive fire, they require fire. If the force of fire is absence for 1-3 year intervals, longleaf pine communities will be invaded and replaced by
“communities of less fire-adapted species” (Van Lear et al., 2005). The longleaf pine ecosystem is built and sustained by fire.
As the creation story progresses the longleaf pine continues to use materials and technology to solve the complex problems of surviving and adapting in a land where the “fury and constancy of lightening knew no end” (Ray, 1999, p. 37). In the creation myth the longleaf pine uses lightning and its ability as a native genius to ignite fire, and quickly pass the danger on.
The longleaf thought to make the fires burn rapidly so danger would pass quickly” (Ray, 1999, p.
37). In order to guarantee that the fires lightning ignited passed quickly through the forest, the

Esther Crompton longleaf pine began “plugging its needles with volatile resins and oils rendering them highly flammable” (Ray, 1999, p. 37). The ignition and spreading of fire benefits the longleaf pine by killing off competitive species less adapted to fire, helps to exposes the mineral floor, and promotes the ecosystem’s characteristically wide, open, sunny terrain that the longleaf and many organisms depend on. Janisse Ray (1999) is showing her audience “the secret history of the longleaf’s adaptation” its native genius that other burn prone hardwoods like “sweet gum, and sumac, and oak” do not know (p. 37).
The longleaf pine is not the only species that is a native genius of adaptation “the ground cover grasses and forbs, or flowering herbs—evolved to survive and welcome fire as well.
Wiregrass, for instance, would not reproduce sexually in lightning’s absence” (Ray, 1999, p. 38).
Like the longleaf pine, the wiregrass evolved to use fire as a tool as a trigger for sexual reproduction. As for the animals they “learned to expect fire and adapt. They scrambled off or took cover: down into tortoise burrows, up into tree crowns” using the land and what the materials they had been given to survive (Ray, 1999, p. 38). Some animal species’, like the gopher tortoise who faced the problem of being too slow to outrun wildfires used their native genius to transform the lands sandy soil into burrows deep enough to shelter it from the flames and heat of the fire. While others species modified their behavior and learned to use the materials they were given such as, the gopher’s burrow or tall trees, to survive and escape from fire’s heat and flame. All of these species are able thrive in a land ruled by lightning because they are native geniuses of adaptation and have found a way to form an adaptive, sometimes dependent and encouraging relationship to fire where other have not. Fire prevents the members of the longleaf pine communities from being displaced by non-native genius species which have not or cannot survive the lands lightning and fire. Knowing the genius of these organisms and the ecosystems

Esther Crompton they compose through abiotic and biotic relationships allows the reader to understand the interiority of what has been lost. We the cracker species have destroyed an ecosystem that was built by fire.
In the chapter “Keystone”
5
Janisse Ray dives deeper into the native genius adaptions of the gopher tortoise in order to show how communities are structured, dependent, and bound together by a place, abiotic factors, and interactions between organisms. As populations of species interact “ structures arise within communities” and “food chains, food webs, guilds, and other interactive webs are created” (community ecology, 2014). Communities are “bound together by a shared environment and a network of influence each species has on the other”
(Nielsen). Over evolutionary time, species within the community adapt and evolve physically and behaviorally in accordance to these relationships and networks of influence to survive
(community ecology, 2014).
The gopher tortoise is a “longleaf pine savanna specialist” that has adapted to the “fire, summer heat, winter cold and predators” of its environment by digging burrows “up to 14.5m long and 3m deep” (Shibu et al., 2006). The burrows that the gopher tortoise excavates have a large network of influence. Over time more than 300 species, which include “the eastern diamondback rattlesnake, gopher frog, opossum, rabbit, Florida mouse, skunk, armadillo, lizard, and gopher cricket,” have formed communal relationships with the gopher tortoise and its burrows (Ray, 1999, p. 170). Those three hundred plus species use the burrows to escape and survive from “cold, heat, dryness, predators” and “periodic forest fires” (Ray, 1999, p. 170).
5 Keystone Species (2014) is defined as “a species exerting a major influence on an ecosystem, esp.
one on whose activities the survival of other species depends”.

Esther Crompton
Various plant species benefit from having the gopher turtle eat their seeds since it will later disperse them when the seeds pass through the tortoise digestive tract (Shibu et al., 2006).
Illustrates a few of the species, such as the endangered indigo snake, which depend on the gopher tortoises burrows for survival and the ecosystems that form within them. For instance the beetles feed on the gopher tortoise’s feces, the gopher frog and cotton mouse feed on the beetles as well as other insects, and every species depends on the shelter from abiotic and biotic factors the burrow provides (Norton).
The gopher tortoise is a keystone species, a member of the community whose absence and presence directly and indirectly greatly impacts the ecological community it resides in. The gopher tortoise depends on the habitat of the longleaf ecosystem with its “low-growing, sunloving plants like wiregrass, broadleaf grasses, and legumes” along with “prickly pear cactus, blackberries, pawpaw, saw palmetto berries and other fruits” for food (Ray, 1999, p. 171). Its
“open sunny spots for laying eggs and dry sandy soil for digging” (Ray, 1999, p. 171). It is because of the longleaf pine’s native genius that it is the only tree that can dominate a fire prone landscape, and being the only tree allows for the lands openness, its wide and sunny spaces. The gopher tortoise cannot survive in the absence of the fire-dependent longleaf pine, and the

Esther Crompton organisms that depend on the burrows of the gopher tortoise cannot survive when the tortoise is absent from the ecosystem.
It is hard to appreciate, let alone mourn; the complexity and richness of a lost ecosystem without first being told its secrets. The ecosystem of “a longleaf forest is full of secrets” (Ray,
1999, p. 65). Ray is sharing the few secrets the longleaf pine forest has revealed to her, so that her audience can begin to understand the apocalyptic loss that are actions created with the decline of the longleaf pine forests and hopefully act to restore them. In Ecology of a Cracker
Childhood Ray is presenting the longleaf pine ecosystem, as she has come to know it, as an integrated biological system of codependent relationships that have evolved as native geniuses to be built by fire and have adapted with each other and their environment in order to survive.

References
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Esther Crompton
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