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Harvard Forest REU Symposium Abstract 2018

• Title: Comparative Species Composition Analysis of New England and Harvard Forest from the mid- 1900’s to the Present
• Author: Saloni B Shah (Boston University)
• Abstract:

  Across the eastern United States, historically dominant red oak and subordinate red maple trees appear to be shifting in abundance as red maples become more prevalent. This species composition shift has implications for forest carbon storage and timber markets as oak species store much carbon and are a valuable source of timber. However, in some sites including the Harvard Forest, red oak dominance continues to increase. I hypothesize that timber harvesting is selectively removing oak species across the region, thereby allowing red maple to recruit into the overstory, while the absence of harvesting in Harvard Forest allows oak species to remain dominant. To elucidate if and when Harvard Forest diverged from the rest of the region, I compared 50+ years of species composition data from historic Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) reports and Harvard Forest permanent plots. Then, to examine whether timber harvesting selectively alters species composition, a cluster analysis and a chi-square test were utilized on data before and after harvest from FIA plots that experienced a timber harvest in the past 10-20 years. Results so far demonstrate that oak species have been increasing and have either recently surpassed or remained dominant over red maples in Harvard Forest. Regionally, oak abundance has declined or remained stagnant while red maple has increased.

• Research Category: Physiological Ecology, Population Dynamics, and Species Interactions; Large Experiments and Permanent Plot Studies