Forest landscape change in the northwestern Wisconsin Pine Barrens from pre-European settlement to the present

Abstract

Natural disturbance patterns can provide useful information for ecosystem management. Our objective was to provide a detailed spatial picture of the pre-European settlement vegetation cover for the northwestern Wisconsin Pine Barrens and to compare it with the present vegetation cover. We analyzed the presettlement conditions using an extensive data set comprised of U.S. General Land Office surveyor records from the mid-19th century and related it to the vegetation cover in 1987 as depicted in a Landsat satellite forest classification. Changes were quantified by calculating differences in abundance and relative importance of tree species at presettlement time and today. Our results revealed a strong decline of jack, red, and white pine (Pinus banksiana Lamb., Pinus resinosa Ait., and Pinus strobus L., respectively), accompanied by an increase of oak (Quercus spp.), trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.), and other hardwood species. Certain vegetation types, e.g., red pine and oak savannas, were removed from the landscape. The forest density gradient of the presettlement landscape with open savannas and woodlands in the South and denser forests in the North disappeared. These changes, especially the increase in forest cover, are ecologically significant because numerous species are adapted to open habitat, which was previously created by fire, and their populations are declining.

Historical framework to explain long-term coupled human and natural system feedbacks: application to a multiple-ownership forest landscape in the northern Great Lakes region, USA

“…The ecological significance of these legacy effects can be appreciated at a regional scale: forest structure and dynamics shifted from dominance by species characteristic of the Great Lakes northern hardwood-mixed conifer region to that of generalist, early successional species (following . Our results correspond with investigations of the Great Lakes region Pastor 1993, Crow et al 1999) and sub-region (Radeloff et al 1999). In the broader regional context, our results contribute to evidence of regional loss of biodiversity.…”

“…Since 1930, commodity forestry practices have largely governed the disturbance regime on the clay plain. A similar reordering of the disturbance regime has developed on landscapes elsewhere in the region (Radeloff et al 1999). Following restoration strategies developed for this northern Great Lakes social-ecological region, clay plain restoration could employ landscape design principles .…”

Anthropogenic Disturbances Create a New Vegetation Toposequence in the Gatineau River Valley, Quebec

“…The "Pine" forest type, which was the most common during the preindustrial period, is rare today and confined to thin or coarse-textured deposits. Pine has decreased similarly in many other regions of northeastern North America [5,8,13,14,[17][18][19]24,39,[49][50][51][52][53][54]. Several factors may be responsible for the decrease in pine.…”

“…Paradoxically, the systematic suppression of fire since the 1920s lowered the chances of pine regeneration: on the most fertile sites, a fire of moderate intensity can be required to burn forest litter and ensure seed germination [5]. Consequently, the decrease in burned area certainly contributed to the decrease in pine [5,13,18,56]. Finally, white pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola J. C.…”

“…As several studies have shown, red oak has increased in many regions of northeastern North America [13,19,20,24,49,74]. The species is not typically dominant in late successional forests, and forms stands that evolve according to a cyclical dynamic maintained by fires [75].…”