uid=HFR,o=lter,dc=ecoinformatics,dc=org all public read doi:10.6073/pasta/944199f2497a20ff7ca1346509e7d2f4 Brian Hall Glenn Motzkin John Burk Matthias Burgi https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9681-601X Researcher Charles Cogbill Researcher Erin Largay Researcher 2023 English

Early surveyors' witness-tree records from initial land divisions are often used to reconstruct the vegetation at the time of European settlement and before extensive Euro-American land use. The following description of methods comes from the published paper (Hall, B., G .Motzkin, D. R. Foster, M. Syfert and J. Burk. 2002. Three hundred years of forest and land-use change in Massachusetts, USA. Journal of Biogeography 29, 1319-1335): "Following methods described more fully in Cogbill et al. (2002), we used early surveyors' tree records from initial land divisions in each town to reconstruct the vegetation at the time of European settlement and before extensive Euro-American land use. All available original 17th - early 19th century survey records located at the state archives and individual town halls were examined and colloquial or common names of marker trees were noted... With few exceptions, only surveys that occurred within 80 years of town settlement were gathered in order to limit the potential influence of European land use on species composition."

geographic information systems history land use landscape vegetation dynamics LTER controlled vocabulary disturbance land use LTER core area Harvard Forest HFR LTER USA HFR default

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.

Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.html CC0-1.0 https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/exist/apps/datasets/showData.html?id=hf087 Southern New England, Long Island NY. Coordinates based on WGS84 datum. -73.8 -69.9 +42.9 +40.5 1640 1999 complete Information Manager Harvard Forest

324 North Main Street Petersham MA 01366 USA

(978) 724-3302 hf-im@lists.fas.harvard.edu Harvard Forest

324 North Main Street Petersham MA 01366 USA

(978) 724-3302 (978) 724-3595 https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu

The data file contains information collected from town offices, state archives, and state libraries. Witness trees are listed using 17th-19th century colloquial names. Note that towns with more than one type of data (see below) may have more than one row of data.

Data are provided as an ArcView point shapefile (town centroids) in latitude/longitude, NAD 1927 datum. The values in the table are the percent of total trees for each taxa (number of individuals in a taxa divided by the total number of trees). Variables: Code = Definition. Town = town name. N_trees = number of witness trees. Acer = % maples. Betula = % birches. Carya = % hickories. Casden = % chestnut (Castanea dentata). Cedar = % trees listed as “cedar”. Faggra = % beech (Fagus grandifolia). Fraxinus = % ash. Jugcin = % butternut (Juglans cinerea). Larlar = % tamarack (Larix laricina). Nyssly = % black gum (Nyssa sylvatica). Pinus = % pine. Populus = % poplar. Prunus = % cherry. Quercus = % oak. Sasalb = % sassafras (Sassafras albidum). Tilame = % basswood (Tilia americana). Tsucan = % hemlock (Tsuga canadensis). Ulmus = % elm. Other = % others. Picea = % spruce.

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. hf087-01-witness.csv tabular data hf087-01-witness.csv 4708214 4311004152fd131bac0b702780d48297 1 \r\n column , https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/data/p08/hf087/hf087-01-witness.csv state state state town town town location.county county or other description of location county or other description of location lat latitude of the town’s centroid (geographic projection, NAD27) degree 0.0001 real NA missing value long longitude of the town’s centroid (geographic projection, NAD27) degree 0.0001 real NA missing value source location of the data source location of the data source type type of survey record. It has been shown that different types of surveys may have different proportions of species (see: Burgi, M., Russell, E.W.B., 2000. Evaluating accuracy of two types of early land survey records in the northeastern Unites States. Jounal of the Torrey Botanical Society 127, 94-98). type of survey record dates dates of the data recorded dates of the data recorded surveyor name of surveyor, only recorded for a few towns name of surveyor settlement approximate year of European-American settlement approximate year of European-American settlement notes any relevant notes any relevant notes ntrees total number of individual trees recorded number 1 whole NA missing value tree tree species tree species count number recorded number 1 whole NA missing value 43215 hf087-02-gis.zip zip file contains an ArcView point shapefile for colonial witness trees (GIS) hf087-02-gis.zip 652448 0eb2015857294915b5aaeee7b541f10f zip Esri shapefile https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/data/p08/hf087/hf087-02-gis.zip vector GIS historical regional historical https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/exist/apps/datasets/showData.html?id=hf088 https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/exist/apps/datasets/showData.html?id=hf014