Dr. John Battles
Associate Professor Division of Ecosystem Science
jbattles@nature.berkeley.edu
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:: Long-Term Research in
Environmental Biology Ecological Consequences of Forest Decline: Pattern
and Process in Red Spruce Forests Forests throughout the world are experiencing worrisome increases in tree morbidity and mortality. Some cases involve the introduction of exotic pests or exploitative land-use practices. For others, the interaction of specifially ordered physical and biological factors produces a progressive loss of vigor that frequently ends in death, a phenomenon called forest decline. Atmospheric pollution often is implicated as a contributor to forest decline. The perceived threat to regional forest health concentrated research efforts on a search for causes. The consequences of decline on forest structure and function have received much less attention. The decline of red spruce (Picea rubens) in the Northeastern United States presents an unique opportunity to study forest dynamics in the midst of an archetypical decline-disturbance. The extent, severity, and timing of spruce decline are such that the phenomenon can be tractably investigated from an ecological perspective. Given the weak factual foundation on which to build a conceptual understanding of the ecology of decline, a detailed case study quantifying pattern and process is necessary scientific groundwork. This proposal requests support to complete a 37-year record of vegetation change on Whiteface Mountain, New York -- a record unparalled in scope and scale for the Northeastern subalpine forest biome. Remeasurement of the vegetation plots will produce the results required to test hypotheses regarding population, community, and ecosystem responses to the waning and waxing of a forest dominant. This research would provide robust estimates of establishment, growth, mortality, and recruitment rates for spruce and associated tree species. Direct measures of such vital statistics do not exist for the Northeastern spruce-fir forest. In addition, shifts in species dominance in the wake of decline would be documented and theories about biomass accumulation and resource limitation would be investigated. The health of the red spruce forests has been at the center of environmental, political, and scientific controversies for two decades. Some of the arguments were about scientific findings that had to rely on inferential approaches to reconstruct the pre-decline status of the forest. Neither the knowledge-base nor database existed to properly evaluate the magnitude of the decline and place it within an appropriate ecological context. The proposed research addresses these deficiences and would perpetuate and preserve the best data available on forest population and community dynamics in this sentinel ecosystem. :: Project Links :: National Science
Foundation's LTREB Research Grant |