Dissertation Research: Factors Influencing Forest Dynamics in Itasca State Park, MN

在明尼苏达州西北部的伊塔斯卡州立公园，一个多学科的项目正在进行中，以确定过去400年来控制森林植被的因素。该方法是根据独立的证据线重建森林，包括组成模式、补充、生长和死亡，以及物理环境，包括气候和火灾，以一种详细的方式跨越一平方公里的研究区域。林分格局将被聚集起来，以记录当地林分格局和过去的景观格局。方法包括分析花粉化石、木炭、燃烧损失、层状湖泊沉积物薄片、400年红松的火痕、林龄结构、树木生长通过年轮宽度、土壤、光照制度、再生和死亡模式。研究结果将展示自然环境变化对植被的许多重要影响，这些影响可用于森林管理和预测对气候、土地利用和火灾制度变化的反应。

A multidiscipinary project is in progress to determine the factors controlling forest vegetation over the last 400 years at Itasca State Park, northwest Minnesota. The approach is to reconstruct from independent lines of evidence forests, including patterns of composition, recruitment, growth, and mortality, and physical environments, including climate and fire, in a detailed fashion across a one km2 study area. Patterns within stands will be agglomerated to document both local stand and landscape patterns through the past. Methods include analysis of fossil pollen, charcoal, loss-on-ignition, and thin-sections of laminated lake sediments, fire-scars of 400 year old red pine trees, stand age structures, tree growth via ring widths, soils, light regimes, and modes of regeneration and mortality. Results will demonstrate many of the important influences of changing physical environments on vegetation that can be used for forest management and prediction of responses to changing climate, land- use, and fire regimes.