Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995, more than 60 years after they were exterminated from the national park. (Photo: William Campbell/Sygma via Getty Images)
Yellowstone's wolves are helping to grow a new generation of young aspen trees that can grow tall and take their place in the forest canopy—the first new generation of such trees in northern Yellowstone in 80 years.
Gray wolves (Canis lupus) disappeared from Yellowstone National Park by the 1930s due to habitat loss, human hunting, and government extermination programs. Without these predators, moose (Cervus canadensis) populations began to grow out of control. At their peak, about 18,000 moose roamed the park, consuming grass, shrubs, and the leaves, twigs, and bark of trees such as quaking cottonwood (Populus tremuloides). This prevented saplings from establishing themselves, and surveys in the 1990s failed to find a single aspen sapling.
“There were old trees and nothing underneath them,” Luke Painter, an ecologist at Oregon State University and lead author of the new study, told Live Science.
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Sourse: www.livescience.com
