Vegetation Patterns in Northeastern North America 1500-2000

<para>Over the last few centuries, human activities have changed the landscape of northeastern North America from mostly forested to a patchwork of forest, farmland and logged areas, back in many areas to mostly forested. Meanwhile, there have been many rapid changes in the composition of the remaining forests, for example, the amounts of hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) and beech (Fagus grandifolia) have decreased while the amount of birch (Betula spp.) has increased. How stable have been the basic vegetational patterns under the onslaught of these landscape and compositional changes? In preliminary analyses, the assemblages of major tree taxa have been zoned for every other century, using optimal splitting by information content and other techniques, to study changes in vegetation groupings over the last 500 years. Several patterns seem to be emerging on a centennial scale: First, vegetation patterns were changing in the centuries before European colonization of the area. Second, the number of zones (vegetation types, based on pollen), was greater in 1700 and 1900 than in 1500 or now. Third, the zone boundaries have moved north from 1500 to the present. Further analyses, including several more data sets will be used to refine these conclusions and to suggest explanations for the changes.</para> </section> </abstract> <keywordSet> <keyword>lakes</keyword> <keyword>paleoecology</keyword> <keyword>pollen</keyword> <keyword>region</keyword> <keyword>vegetation dynamics</keyword> <keywordThesaurus>LTER controlled vocabulary</keywordThesaurus> </keywordSet> <keywordSet> <keyword>disturbance</keyword> <keyword>land use</keyword> <keyword>human-environment</keyword> <keywordThesaurus>LTER core area</keywordThesaurus> </keywordSet> <keywordSet> <keyword>Harvard Forest</keyword> <keyword>HFR</keyword> <keyword>LTER</keyword> <keyword>USA</keyword> <keywordThesaurus>HFR default</keywordThesaurus> </keywordSet> <intellectualRights> <section> <para>This dataset is released to the public under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 (No Rights Reserved). Please keep the dataset creators informed of any plans to use the dataset. Consultation with the original investigators is strongly encouraged. Publications and data products that make use of the dataset should include proper acknowledgement.</para> </section> </intellectualRights> <licensed> <licenseName>Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal</licenseName> <url>https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.html</url> <identifier>CC0-1.0</identifier> </licensed> <distribution> <online> <url function="information">https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/exist/apps/datasets/showData.html?id=hf026</url> </online> </distribution> <coverage> <geographicCoverage> <geographicDescription>Northeastern North America. Coordinates based on WGS84 datum.</geographicDescription> <boundingCoordinates> <westBoundingCoordinate>-79.0</westBoundingCoordinate> <eastBoundingCoordinate>-66.0</eastBoundingCoordinate> <northBoundingCoordinate>+47.5</northBoundingCoordinate> <southBoundingCoordinate>+38.0</southBoundingCoordinate> </boundingCoordinates> </geographicCoverage> <temporalCoverage> <rangeOfDates> <beginDate> <calendarDate>1500</calendarDate> </beginDate> <endDate> <calendarDate>2000</calendarDate> </endDate> </rangeOfDates> </temporalCoverage> </coverage> <maintenance> <description> <para>complete</para> </description> </maintenance> <contact scope="document"> <positionName>Information Manager</positionName> <organizationName>Harvard Forest</organizationName> <address scope="document"> <deliveryPoint>324 North Main Street</deliveryPoint> <city>Petersham</city> <administrativeArea>MA</administrativeArea> <postalCode>01366</postalCode> <country>USA</country> </address> <phone phonetype="voice">(978) 724-3302</phone> <electronicMailAddress>hf-im@lists.fas.harvard.edu</electronicMailAddress> </contact> <publisher scope="document"> <organizationName>Harvard Forest</organizationName> <address scope="document"> <deliveryPoint>324 North Main Street</deliveryPoint> <city>Petersham</city> <administrativeArea>MA</administrativeArea> <postalCode>01366</postalCode> <country>USA</country> </address> <phone phonetype="voice">(978) 724-3302</phone> <phone phonetype="fax">(978) 724-3595</phone> <onlineUrl>https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu</onlineUrl> </publisher> <methods> <methodStep> <description> <section> <para>To study this question, a set of 52 pollen diagrams from lakes with detail in the last several centuries has been assembled for the northeastern United States.</para> </section> </description> </methodStep> </methods> <project> <title>Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research Harvard Forest

324 North Main Street Petersham MA 01366 USA

(978) 724-3302 (978) 724-3595 https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu https://ror.org/059cpzx98 pointOfContact The Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program examines ecological dynamics in the New England region resulting from natural disturbances, environmental change, and human impacts. National Science Foundation LTER grants: DEB-8811764, DEB-9411975, DEB-0080592, DEB-0620443, DEB-1237491, DEB-1832210. hf026-01-list.csv list of lakes hf026-01-list.csv 2009 c3676c4da666bc43f5c2cac374aafe24 1 \r\n column , https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/data/p02/hf026/hf026-01-list.csv lake.name lake name lake name lake.number lake number lake number lat.deg.n latitude degree 0.01 real NA missing value lon.deg.w longitude degree 0.01 real NA missing value elevation elevation meter 1 whole NA missing value data data availability 1 in North American Pollen Database 2 submitted to North American Pollen Database 3 pending name contact author 55 hf026-02-pollen.csv pollen hf026-02-first.csv 142206 5de5ef2f4680845a78ad5321b52a792f 1 \r\n column , https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/data/p02/hf026/hf026-02-pollen.csv name name of lake or pond name depth depth in centimeters below the sediment surface centimeter 1 real NA missing value pollen pollen, using abbreviations used for North American Pollen Database pollen count numbers of grains counted number 1 real NA missing value 6221 hf026-03-map.gif map of lakes hf026-03-map.gif 7699 2760b98a6cea6b960e075646ac1f518e gif https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/data/p02/hf026/hf026-03-map.gif image historical regional paleological