Reconstruction of early nineteenth‐century vegetation and fire regimes in the Missouri Ozarks

Abstract

Aim The purpose of this study was to reconstruct early nineteenth-century vegetation and fire regimes to examine the role of fire, topography, and substrate interactions in shaping landscape and regional vegetation patterns. LocationOur study area was the Current River watershed of the Ozark Highlands in south-central Missouri, USA. MethodsWe combined analysis of early nineteenth-century Public Land Survey (PLS) notes and dendrochronology-based fire histories to reconstruct vegetation and disturbance regimes of pine-oak (Pinus-Quercus) woodlands.Three methods were used to display and analyse PLS data within a Geographic Information System (GIS): (1) simple point distributions for each tree species; (2) section line descriptions of each tree species and other coded features (e.g. 'prairie'); and (3) spatial interpolation of the point-tree data.Vegetation patterns were then related to geological parent material, topography, and mean fire-return intervals from 23 sites using correlation and Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA). ResultsThe most striking patterns in the early 1800 s were extensive stands of shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata Mill.) and oak-dominated 'barrens' (savanna) in the frequently burned areas south-west of the Current River, and more mesophytic, fire-sensitive species (red oaks (Quercus rubra L., Q. coccinea Muenchh.), maples (Acer rubrum L., Acer saccharum Marsh), eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana L.) in a fire shadow north-east of the river. Several kilometre-wide ecotones of pine-mixed hardwood encompassed the major pineries and barrens.Fire-return intervals and relative dominance of several tree species were strongly correlated at both fine (3-64 km 2 ) and coarse (> 100 km 2 ) spatial scales. At fine scales, relative dominance of shortleaf pine increased with increasing fire frequency during 1701-1820. Relative dominance of black oak (Q. velutina Lam.), and to a lesser extent post oak (Q. stellata Wang.), decreased with increasing fire frequency. Shortleaf pine and these xerophytic oak species occurred on similar bedrock types but were strongly differentiated by fire regimes. Main conclusions Fires exerted strong constraints on vegetation composition and patterns.Historical patterns of Native American occupancy in the region are consistent with the reconstructed vegetation and fire histories and suggest that anthropogenic fire regimes played an overriding role in the development of Ozark vegetation in the 1800s.

Reconstructing Vegetation Past: Pre-Euro-American Vegetation for the Midwest Driftless Area, USA

“…Contingency table analysis has been used in several studies to analyze the relationship between PLS data and environmental factors (Whitney 1982, Whitney 1986, Leitner et al 1991, Black et al 2002, while others have used regression models (Iverson et al 1988, Batek et al 1999. We tallied the sections based on cover class and the associated environmental factor category.…”

Evaluating the effects of alternative forest management plans under various physiographic settings using historical records as a reference

“…Midwest forest conditions prior to widespread immigration by European settlers represent a period when anthropogenic disturbances were comparatively minor, although Native Americans and early European immigrants nevertheless greatly influenced historical fire regimes Guyette and Larson, 2000;Guyette et al, 2002;Moore et al, 1999). Historical estimates of tree species composition reconstructed from GLO data have been shown to be consistent with those reported in archaeological and historical documents in the Missouri Ozarks (Batek et al, 1999). The assumption that vegetation conditions prior to European settlement represent typical conditions for lightly disturbed native vegetation adapted to local physiographic conditions is commonly employed Moore et al, 1999;Swanson et al, 1994).…”

“…It encompasses 0.6 million hectares in the heavily forested Missouri Ozarks and is one of the largest expanses of public forest land in the Midwest (Missouri Department of Conservation, 2010). The fire history of the region has been well documented, as have forest vegetation conditions in the early 1800s prior to European settlement (Batek et al, 1999;Guyette et al, 2002). Current forest composition is radically different from the pre-settlement era due to shifting patterns of harvesting, agriculture, and wildfire associated with European settlement (Zhang et al, 2009).…”

“…Heavy logging between 1890 and 1920 (Shifley and Brookshire, 2000) and fire suppression since 1940 (Guyette et al, 2002) have decreased the abundance of shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata Mill.) and favored the development of mixed oak forests (Batek et al, 1999). Current forests are dominated by black oak (Quercus velutina Lam.…”

An innovative computer design for modeling forest landscape change in very large spatial extents with fine resolutions

“…and shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata Mill.). The abundance of shortleaf pine is much lower than it was prior to the heavy logging that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Batek et al, 1999). Red maple (Acer rubrum L.) and sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.)…”