A half-century ago, you would be hard-pressed to find a Christmas tree on Nebraska’s wide-open plains. But these days, as eastern redcedars invade the Great Plains grasslands, trees are a dime a dozen.
The main culprit for this woody takeover? Fire suppression. Historically, these grasslands burned every year, allowing soil to recharge and spurring new perennial plants to grow. Frequent fires also kept redcedars relegated to rocky, wet places, incinerating any seedlings sprouting amid the grass. But when European settlers began dousing flames, trees started encroaching.
The unintended encroachment of trees onto prairies has serious economic and ecologic consequences. The fast-growing species replace native perennial grasses, cause more catastrophic wildfires, displace wildlife, and disrupt water and soil cycles.
