Decadal-Scale Trends in Forest Succession and Climatic Sensitivity in a Red Spruce-Fraser Fir Forest at Roan Mountain, Pisgah and Cherokee National Forests
- ASU Author/Contributor (non-ASU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Philip Bradley White (Creator)
- Institution
- Appalachian State University (ASU )
- Web Site: https://library.appstate.edu/
- Advisor
- Peter Soulé
Abstract: I used dendrochronological techniques to investigate the temporal stability of a climate signal in relation to successional processes and disturbance events in the heavily disturbed red spruce (Picea rubens Sarg.) and Fraser fir [Abies fraseri (Pursh) Poir.] forest of Roan Mountain, Tennessee and North Carolina. I collected increment cores from all trees within six 0.05 ha plots located in spruce-fir co-dominant stands. I developed a red spruce tree-ring chronology from cores collected in my sampling plots and from trees located elsewhere in the study area. To test the stability of the climate-tree growth relationship, I performed statistical correlation within moving intervals using DendroClim 2002 software. Changes in forest structure coincided with stand-wide disturbance events such as balsam woolly adelgid (Adelges piceae Ratz.) infestation and widespread early twentieth-century logging. I detected shifts in climatic sensitivity during periods of changing forest composition following disturbances. Notably, a significant shift in red spruce temperature sensitivity occurred during the 1940s, coinciding with a period of aggressive logging. Red spruce climatic sensitivity was often sporadic and fluctuating in signal strength, leading to the hypothesis that stand dynamics may play a larger role than climate in limiting spruce tree growth in a frequently disturbed, closed canopy forest.
Decadal-Scale Trends in Forest Succession and Climatic Sensitivity in a Red Spruce-Fraser Fir Forest at Roan Mountain, Pisgah and Cherokee National Forests
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Created on 12/29/2010
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Thesis
- White, P.B. (2010). Decadal-Scale Trends in Forest Succession and Climatic Sensitivity in a Red Spruce-Fraser Fir Forest at Roan Mountain, Pisgah and Cherokee National Forests. Unpublished master’s thesis. Appalachian State University, Boone, NC.
- Language: English
- Date: 2010
- Keywords
- Dendrochronology, Forest Ecology, Mountain Geography, Climatology, Disturbance Regimes