LTREB: The Ecological Consequences of Forest Decline: Pattern and Process in Red Spruce Forests

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0075610BattlesForests throughout the world are experiencing worrisome increases in tree mortality. Some cases involve the introduction of exotic pests or exploitative land use practices. For others, the interaction of specifically ordered physical and biological factors produces a progressive loss of vigor that frequently ends in death, a phenomenon called forest decline. Atmospheric pollution often is implicated as a contributor to forest decline. The perceived threat to regional forest health concentrated research efforts on a search for causes. The consequences of decline on forest structure and function have received much less attention. The decline of red spruce in the northeastern United States presents an opportunity to study forest dynamics in the midst of an archetypal decline-disturbance. The extent, severity, and timing of spruce decline are such that the phenomenon can be tractably investigated from an ecological perspective. Given the weak factual foundation on which to build a conceptual understanding of the ecology of decline, a detailed case study quantifying pattern and process is necessary. This project will complete a 37 year record of vegetation change on Whiteface Mountain, New York - a record unparalleled in scope and scale for the northeastern subalpine forest biome. Re-measurement of 64 permanent forest plots stratified by land use, aspect, and elevation would provide robust estimates of growth, mortality, and recruitment rates for spruce and associated tree species. The health of the red spruce forests has been at the center of environmental, political and scientific controversies for two decades. Some of the arguments were about scientific findings that had to rely on inferential approaches to reconstruct the pre-decline status of the forest. Neither the knowledge base nor database existed to properly evaluate the magnitude of the decline and place it within an appropriate ecological context. The proposed research addresses these deficiencies and would perpetuate and preserve the best data available on forest population and community dynamics in this sentinel ecosystem.