A 370-year dendroecological history of an old-growth Abies-Acer-Quercus forest in Hokkaido, northern Japan

Abstract

Dendroecological techniques were used to study the dynamics and species recruitment patterns, spanning nearly four centuries, for a mesic, montane, old-growth forest in Hokkaido, northern Japan. The forest is dominated by Abies sachalinensis (Masters), Acer palmatum (Thunb.),Quercus mongolica var. grosseserrata (Rehd.), and Cercidiphyllum japonicum (Sieb.). From 1620 to 1750 and 1820 to 1840, Q. mongolica exhibited continuous recruitment into the overstory. A lack of recruitment for all tree species from 1750 to 1820 followed a 1739 volcanic eruption 200 km from the study area. Release events for individual trees occurred almost every decade of the stand history, indicating that frequent small-scale disturbances coupled with infrequent large-scale disturbances, impact tree growth and species recruitment. From 1870 to 1950, canopy recruitment of Abies and Acer dominated the forest, while recruitment of Quercus ceased. These later successional species appeared to be replacing Quercus, suggesting that the syndrome of declining oak dominance is an increasingly global phenomenon. However, successional patterns in the forest are difficult to predict because intensive deer browsing has recently prevented canopy recruitment of all tree species and the possibility of future large-scale disturbances, such as fire and volcanic eruption.

Recent human impact on vegetation in Takkobu, northern Japan, reconstructed from fossil pollen in lake sediments

“…The pollen assemblage in the sample may have reflected the impact of volcanic disturbance, which can reduce photosynthesis, and, hence, pollen production, through tephra deposition on foliage and atmospheric cooling from volcanic aerosols (Briffa et al 1998;del Moral and Grishin 1999). A dendroecological study of a forest 200 km away from the volcano and 50 km west of the Kushiro Mire has demonstrated a few years of suppressed growth of Quercus crispula following the 1739 eruption (Abrams et al 1999). Yet, it would be highly speculative to relate this to the relative oak decrease in the pollen record, since there is little evidence to suggest the low tolerance of oak to such a disturbance compared with other taxa, particularly elm, whose pollen representation increased in the Ta-a layer.…”

“…The relative abundance of oak and birch in the forests, thus, shifted towards the latter, contributing to the present decline of oak pollen relative to birch in the Lake Takkobu sediment. Furthermore, the increase of Sika deer (Cervus nippon) over the last few decades in Kushiro (as elsewhere in Japan) is likely to have suppressed the natural regeneration of oak (Quercus crispula), since its seedlings are highly vulnerable to deer browsing, while the survival of birch seedlings depends more on light conditions (Abrams et al 1999;Nomiya et al 2003).…”

Genetic Variation in Quercus acutissima Carruth., in Traditional Japanese Rural Forests and Agricultural Landscapes, Revealed by Chloroplast Microsatellite Markers

“…Relatively few studies have examined tree species strongly affected by In Japan, there are 15 native Quercus species [20] and they are widely distributed from south to north and from the coasts to the mountains. They are familiar to forest researchers and many ecological studies have been conducted on them, especially in the temperate zone (e.g., [29,30]). However, only a few reports have examined the phylogeographic characteristics of oak trees (e.g., [31][32][33]) and the genetic variation in Q. acutissima in Japan has not been investigated.…”

Dendroecological reconstructions of forest disturbance history using time-series analysis with intervention detection

“…Using thinning-response studies, they determined that a 25% increase between subsequent decadal intervals of mean radial-growth increments denoted a prior canopy disturbance. Their method and similar approaches have enabled reconstructions of disturbance history for a range of forest ecosystems (e.g., Abrams et al 1999;Rozas 2003;Rentch et al 2003) and have become the most commonly employed method of dendroecological reconstructions of disturbance history (Rubino and McCarthy 2004). Recently, Black and Abrams (2003) refined this method for three species by incorporating release criteria that are dependent on the magnitude of the prior mean growth rate.…”