Summary
Published in Forests: 8, 120.
Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) forests are among the main forest types of eastern North America. Sugar maple stands growing on Appalachian soils of the Lower St-Lawrence region are located at the northeastern limit of the northern hardwood forest zone. Given the biogeographical position of these forests at the edge of the boreal biome, we aimed to reconstruct the fire history and document the occurrence of temperate and boreal trees in sugar maple sites during the Holocene based on soil macro-charcoal analysis. Despite having experienced different numbers of fire events, the fire history of the maple sites was broadly similar, with two main periods of fire activity, i.e., early- to mid-Holocene and late-Holocene. A long fire-free interval of at least 3500 years separated the two periods from the mid-Holocene up until 2000 years ago. The maple sites differ with respect to fire frequency and synchronicity of the last millennia. According to the botanical composition of charcoal, forest vegetation remained relatively homogenous during the Holocene until recently. Conifer and broadleaf species coexisted in mixed forests during the Holocene, in phase with fire events promoting the regeneration of boreal and temperate tree assemblages including balsam fir (Abies balsamea) and sugar maple.
File
Sector(s):
Forests
Categorie(s):
Scientific Article
Theme(s):
Forest Ecology, Forestry Research
Departmental author(s):
Author(s)
PAYETTE, Serge, Vanessa PILON, Pierre-Luc COUILLARD and Jason LAFLAMME
Year of publication :
2017
Keywords :
maple forest, sugar maple, soil charcoal, macrofossil analysis, fire regime, forest stability
