Disturbance and Environmental Variability Effects on Plant Colonization and Establishment

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Ecologists, biogeographers, and other scientists recently have devoted considerable attention to the study of factors that influence the form and extent of biological diversity within various types of locales. Among the factors that have been studied intensively are the impacts of various types of natural and human- induced disturbances (like fires or floods) and the response of vegetative and faunal communities to changes in general environmental conditions (like changes in temperature or precipitation). Relatively little research has been devoted to interactions between these general factors, however. This project will focus on description and analysis of vegetation change in the mixed deciduous forest ecosystems of the Huyck Preserve in upstate New York. The project will focus on answering two questions: (1) What role does disturbance play in determining the species composition and richness of forest and old field communities? and (2) What responses in understory forest-vegetation phenology and spatial population dynamics can be related to environmental variability within and between years? These questions will be answered using data gathered through a variety of means, including vegetation censuses and mapping, tree-ring measurements, measurement of vegetation gaps, testing of soil samples, and experiments in which environmental variables are controlled to replicate different climatic regimes. This project will provide new information about and new insights into the ways that different forms of disturbance and different types of environmental change affect the number, form, and location of different species in temperate mixed deciduous ecosystems. Because analyses of these two general factors will be conducted simultaneously, the project will also enhance understandings of interactions among disturbances and different forms of environmental variability as they affect vegetation. The conclusions of this project therefore will contribute to increased knowledge of the fine-scale dynamics within and between vegetative communities, and they also will advance the development of more comprehensive regional and global models that relate natural change to human and physical activities.