![]() Additionally, the modern forest composition is more homogeneous and less coupled to local climatic controls. Throughout the region, there has been a broad ecological shift away from late successional taxa, such as beech and hemlock, in favor of early- and mid-successional taxa, such as red maple and poplar. Compositional change is most strongly associated with the historical extent of agricultural clearing. The magnitude of change is spatially clustered at local scales (<125 km) but exhibits little evidence of regional-scale gradients. Nonetheless, there have been dramatic shifts in the relative abundance of forest taxa. We found that with few exceptions, notably the American chestnut, the same taxa that made up the pre-colonial forest still comprise the forest today, despite ample opportunities for species invasion and loss. ![]() We compared these records to modern forest inventory data and described: (1) the magnitude and attributes of forest compositional change, (2) the geography of change, and (3) the relationships between change and environmental factors and historical land use. ![]() This setting affords the opportunity to address a major ecological question: How similar are today's forests to those existing prior to European colonization? Working throughout a nine-state region spanning Maine to Pennsylvania, we assembled a comprehensive database of archival land-survey records describing the forests at the time of European colonization. The northeastern United States is a predominately-forested region that, like most of the eastern U.S., has undergone a 400-year history of intense logging, land clearance for agriculture, and natural reforestation. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |