Comparison of Historical and Contemporary Forest Structure and Composition on Permanent Plots in Southwestern Ponderosa Pine Forests

By Margaret M. Moore, D. Huffman, Peter Z. Fulé, W. Covington, Joseph E. Crouse. Forestry sciences, 2004

184 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We compared historical (1909–1913) and contemporary (1997–1999) forest structure and composition on 15 permanent plots in ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.) forests of Arizona and New Mexico. We used the same sampling methods as in the early 1900s and compared stand density, diameter distributions, species composition, and broad age classes from the two periods. Stand density (trees ≥9.14 cm dbh) significantly (P < 0.001) increased on plots from an average of 77.4 trees per plot (s = 49.9) at plot establishment in 1909–1913 to 519.1 trees per plot (s = 252.3) at remeasurement in 1997–1999. Basal area significantly (P < 0.001) increased from 8.0 m2 per plot (s = 3.5) to 28.5 m2 per plot (s = 10.1). Contemporary tree diameter distribution shifted toward smaller size classes as demonstrated by a significant (P = 0.001) decrease in quadratic mean diameter from 38.5 cm (s = 7.5) in 1909–1913 to 28.6 cm (s = 7.1) in 1997–1999. Broad age classes yielded an average of 61.5 (s = 49.5) residual live trees classified as “blackjack” ponderosa pine (P. ponderosa <150 years) and 13.3 (s = 11.9) “yellow pine” (P. ponderosa ≥150 years) in 1909–1913. In 1997–1999, 416 live trees (s = 229.6) were “blackjack” and 57.2 (s = 28.5) trees on average were “yellow pine.” Twelve of the 15 plots were not invaded by other tree species (remained pure ponderosa pine type), while composition shifted slightly on three plots toward more shade-tolerant and fire-intolerant species. Ninety-one percent of the historically (1909–1913 or older) mapped tree structures (live trees, snags, logs, stumps, etc.) were relocated, which suggested that the forest reconstruction field techniques are reliable within 10%. Dramatic increases in tree densities may represent an increased potential for bark beetle epidemics and stand replacing wildfire over large areas in the Southwest. FOR. SCI. 50(2):162–176.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0135c9f9a0c7907594c968dee97f12cbbb3c3284

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Citations in the corpus

THE THREE PHASES OF LAND‐USE CHANGE: IMPLICATIONS FOR BIODIVERSITY (2005, background): “Many of these problems are concentrated in the ponderosa pine zone, which, in the absence of fire suppression has a relatively high frequency of low severity fires (Agee 1993), but quickly produces a sufficient fuel load to support high severity crown fires (Moore et al. 2004).”
Spatial patterns of ponderosa pine regeneration in high-severity burn patches (2017, unknown): “…are attributed to the accumulation of abnormally high canopy and surface fuel loads from over 100 years of ﬁ re exclusion (Fulé et al., 1997, 2009; Moore et al., 2004), warmer and drier climate conditions, and longer ﬁ re seasons (Dillon et al., 2011; Jolly et al., 2015; Reilly et al., 2017).”
Pine-oak forest dynamics five years after ecological restoration treatments, Arizona, USA (2005, background): “…due to the persistence of long-lived trees and decay-resistant dead wood (Covington and Moore, 1994), drawn from early historical surveys (Moore et al., 2004), measured in relict sites (Youngblood et al., 2004), or inferred from similar stands that remain in nearly natural conditions…”
Implications of current ecological thinking for biodiversity conservation: A review of the salient issues (2005, background): “Current controversial issues such as the wildfires in the western United States, which resulted from fire suppression policies or lack of fire management, are a direct result of this legacy (Fulé et al. 1997, Pollet and Omi 2002, Moore et al. 2004).”
Perpetuating old ponderosa pine (2007, background): “…often kill old pines have been linked to temperature increases since the mid 1980s (Westerling et al., 2006) and fuel accumulation resulting from a century of fire exclusion (Habeck, 1994; Arno et al., 1995, 1997; Covington et al., 2001; Keane et al., 2002; Fulé et al., 2004; Moore et al., 2004).”
Recommendations for Integrating Restoration Ecology and Conservation Biology in Ponderosa Pine Forests of the Southwestern United States (2006, background): “…activities in combination have created forests that are often highly susceptible to uncharacteristic stand-replacing fire, drought, insect attack, and other deviations from historic conditions (Covington & Moore 1994; Covington et al. 1997; Allen et al. 2002; Friederici 2003; Moore et al. 2004).”