Summary
Published in Forest Ecology and Management, 407: 84-94.
The most direct way of deciphering the dynamics of an ecosystem is by examining its biotic and abiotic components based on analysis of living and dead organisms distributed aboveground. The surface analysis method presented here provides a centennial to millennial stand-scale composition and disturbance history and is applicable in any wood-dominated ecosystem. A meticulous analysis of living and dead trees, and macro-remains (charcoal, leaves, insects) lying above mineral soil was performed in an untouched and in an anthropogenic sugar maple (Acer saccharum) forest. Sugar maple ecosystems provide an appropriate setting for testing this method as they are impacted by several natural and human disturbances. The living and dead components in both sites indicate an increase in species abundance independent of human interventions, although it was accelerated by logging in the anthropogenic forest. The stands were affected by recent insect outbreaks and by fire over the last 2000 years. Charcoal remains indicate that a mixed forest occupied both sites with sugar maple as a companion species for more than 1000 years. Surface analysis is a direct method for improving our understanding of current, past and future forest dynamics in natural and anthropogenic conditions, in this case highlighting how a foundational species of eastern North America thrives in different successional states and disturbance regimes. Novel tools that provide insight into pre-colonial ecosystems are greatly needed, given that a proper understanding of species current distributions and behaviour relative to allogenic disturbance is of crucial importance for restoration purposes and accurate prediction of future changes.
File
Sector(s):
Forests
Categorie(s):
Scientific Article
Theme(s):
Forest Ecology, Forestry Research
Departmental author(s):
Author(s)
PILON, Vanessa, Serge PAYETTE, Pierre-Luc COUILLARD and Jason LAFLAMME
Year of publication :
2017
Keywords :
Acer saccharum, sugar maple, coarse woody debris, ecological reconstruction, fire history, mixed forest, stand disturbance
