> Their preferred ecological niche involves poor, salty soil.
This is misunderstood.
Is the same with pines. We see pine forests in terrible windy places, sandy places near beaches and chill snowy mountains. We could conclude that pines "prefer" this areas but is not totally true. Pines grow perfectly in fertile soils, but saplings can't compete and after some time are displaced by other trees.
Conifers are very old plants and survivor masters that can stand bad lands that no other tree can endure. Poor soils equals often land-scars by old wildfires, so pines adapted to fire to spread its seeds and feel at home there even if they grow at a slug pace until eventually making a pine forest. they even evolved to promote fire as defense against competitors. When planted in rich soils pines grow perfectly well and fast, but a pine forest is just "a normal forest without everything else".
Honey and black Locust trees are tolerant to poor soils because they can fix air nitrogen and have deep roots, but when allowed to run free are invasive and deliberately look for riverbeds with fertile soil and plenty of freshwater. In that places they regrow from roots again and again and are practically indestructible.
This is misunderstood.
Is the same with pines. We see pine forests in terrible windy places, sandy places near beaches and chill snowy mountains. We could conclude that pines "prefer" this areas but is not totally true. Pines grow perfectly in fertile soils, but saplings can't compete and after some time are displaced by other trees.
Conifers are very old plants and survivor masters that can stand bad lands that no other tree can endure. Poor soils equals often land-scars by old wildfires, so pines adapted to fire to spread its seeds and feel at home there even if they grow at a slug pace until eventually making a pine forest. they even evolved to promote fire as defense against competitors. When planted in rich soils pines grow perfectly well and fast, but a pine forest is just "a normal forest without everything else".
Honey and black Locust trees are tolerant to poor soils because they can fix air nitrogen and have deep roots, but when allowed to run free are invasive and deliberately look for riverbeds with fertile soil and plenty of freshwater. In that places they regrow from roots again and again and are practically indestructible.