You are here
Harvard Forest REU Symposium Abstract 2007
- Title: Bob Marshall’s forest reconstruction plot: three centuries of ecological resilience to natural and human disturbance
- Author: Alex w Ireland (Lehigh University)
- Abstract:
In 1924, Bob Marshall established a 0.15 ha plot in a Tsuga canadensis (eastern hemlock) - Pinus strobus (white pine) forest. We relocated the plot, re-measured forest structure, composition, age structure, and site features including decaying stumps, pits, and mounds. Using this plot, Marshall developed a historical approach to address important questions of long-term forest development through reconstruction. Marshall and Richard Fisher, his advisor, believed this forest, on sandy outwash soils, exhibited unusual compositional resilience to disturbance. Marshall’s groundbreaking historical work confirmed that T. canadensis and P. strobus persisted on the site, despite repeated logging, since at least the early 1800s. Marshall’s study site was experimentally harvested in the winter of 1924-25, severely damaged by the hurricane of 1938, and subjected to complete salvage logging and slash reduction operations in 1939. Our study evaluated the forest’s response to this series of intense disturbances and documented that the modern T. canadensis and P. strobus forest displays a structure and composition remarkably similar to that of 1924. Our results reinforced the conclusions reached by Marshall in the 1920s and confirmed that on these excessively drained soils mixtures of T. canadensis and P. strobus were remarkably resilient over time.
- Research Category: Historical and Retrospective Studies
- Figures: C:Documents and Settingsstaff.HFDesktopTable 1.pdf
C:Documents and Settingsstaff.HFDesktopTable 2.pdf
