Excellent presentation, and will be sure to add more Oaks to my landscape to encourage diversity.

Thank you! I have the different species of oak in my yard and I love them. I'm trying to learn to be a good steward of the space that I have

Its worth noting that professor Tallamy's superstars of caterpillar production (oaks, wild cherries/plums and willows) are all light demanding sorts of trees. Shade tolerant trees like maples and beech are used by markedly fewer species of lepidoptera. Could this be because the megafaunal herbivores kept the landscape much more open that the closed canopy woodland we would imagine over millions of years. So many lepidoptera evolved to use oaks because there were so many oaks around. There were so many oaks around because not only was the landscape quite open and sunny but also because of the dispersal due to jays and squirrels. Not only will the jays and squirrel disperse the acorns, the will cache the acorns around landmarks, such as around or under some spiny uneaten shrubs. Oak that germinated in such situation would be protected in its tender years by living barbed wire. On a different note if you only have a small space to work with, an oak can be contained by coppicing or pollarding.

I found this presentation to be entralling! I loved the integration of broader ecology into the oak tree focus. I'll be planting and caring for at least two oak trees this year

This is such an interesting presentation thank you I am inspired

So interesting! Thank you.

What an interesting presentation! I love his passion for insects and birds!

Thank you for this fine presentation. I tuned in hoping to learn more about the soil conditions required for oaks to survive prior to germination. Alas that was not a subject that was covered. I live in the semi arid desert southwest and have tried to grow bur oak before. They would leaf out a little and last a couple of years and then give up. We have alkaline soils on the shallow side. I watched a video by Bill Mollison who explained that oaks will only survive in soils that meet the preconditions of a specific fungal presence that oaks have a symbiotic relationship with. Alas Bill never mentioned precisely what that fungi it was or how and where it arises. Do you have any information on this? If I can introduce the soil preconditions I may try again.

are there any correlations between cicada events and oak mast years? I can imagine that a cicada event the year after an oak mast would be very bad for the cicadas.