Historical Lanscapes and Legacies

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Historical Landscapes and Legacies
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Why study historical landscapes?
(from Delcourt et al. 1983)
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Human Scale
Human Scale
(from Bissonnette 1997)
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Why study historical landscapes? 1) Broad-scale
ecosystem processes can be slow and/or infrequent.
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• Why study historical landscapes?
• Ecosystem processes can be slow and/or
  infrequent.
• To improve our understanding of ecosystem
  stability and resilience natural variability.

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Ecological Stability and Resilience

• Ecosystems
• closed vs. open
• deterministic vs. stochastic
• homogeneous vs. heterogeneous

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• Natural Variability
• Understanding and maintaining dynamic ecosystems.
• Spatial and temporal variation in ecological
  conditions, that are relatively unaffected by
  people, within a period of time and over a
  geographical area (Landres et al. 1999).
• Assumptions
• Disturbance is an natural part of any ecosystem,
• Ecosystems are resilient to disturbance,
• Maintaining ecosystem types maintains ecosystem
  integrity, over broad spatial scales.

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• Why study historical landscapes?
• Ecosystem processes can be slow and/or
  infrequent.
• To improve our understanding of ecosystem
  stability and resilience.
• To improve our predictions of future ecosystem
  states.

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• Complex Systems Theory
• Ecological systems are complex and often
  dependent on initial conditions.
• Legacies structures that affect ecosystem
  functioning long after disturbance event.

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Message from a Mountain -- Franklin and MacMahon
(2000)

• Extant Theory Predicted
• Slow
• Uniform encroachment
• by hardy species
• Ecological Succession

• Actually Occurred
• Rapid
• Via diverse pathways largely nucleation
• Largely due to legacies

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Biotic Legacies the types, quantities, or
patterns of organisms and biotic structures that
persist from the pre-disturbance
ecosystem. Biotic Legacies of Mt. St. Helens
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• Biotic Legacies the types, quantities, or
  patterns of organisms and biotic structures that
  persist from the pre-disturbance ecosystem.
• Biotic Legacies of Mt. St. Helens
• rhizomes, roots, seeds, and spores below ground
• pocket gophers and deer mice below ground
• tree saplings and shrubs below snow
• invertebrates and amphibians in ponds
• snags and downed logs

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Abiotic Legacies physical modifications of the
environment that may result from
disturbance. Abiotic Legacies of Mt. St. Helens
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• Abiotic Legacies physical modifications of the
  environment that may result from disturbance.
• Abiotic Legacies of Mt. St. Helens
• ash deposition
• mud slides and erosion channels

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• Why study historical landscapes?
• Ecosystem processes can be slow and/or
  infrequent.
• To improve our understanding of ecosystem
  stability and resilience.
• To improve our predictions of future ecosystem
  states.
• To provide background for natural resources
  management decisions.

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• Ecological Restoration
• Requires defensible baselines.
• Baselines are used to
• assess the need for restorativetreatments, and
• to evaluate their success.

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• Why study historical landscapes?
• Ecosystem processes can be slow and/or
  infrequent.
• To improve our understanding of ecosystem
  stability and resilience.
• To improve our predictions of future ecosystem
  states.
• To provide background for natural resources
  management decisions.
• General interested in where we have been.

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• Ways to Study Historical Landscapes
• The Environmental Record
• Lake Sediments, Bogs, Forest Hollows
• Tree Cores
• Packrat middens
• Field evidence
• The Written Record
• Land Surveys, Wills, Tax Rolls
• Aerial Photos, Maps, Landscape Photos
• Laws, Diaries, Artwork

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• Ways to Study Historical Landscapes
• Lake Sediments, Bogs, Forest Hollows

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Palynology species, not communities, migrate
(Davis 1981)
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• Ways to Study Historical Landscapes
• Tree Cores

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Dendrochronology Southwestern fire regimes
(Swetnam and Baisan 1996)

• Southwestern Ponderosa Pine experience high
  frequency, low intensity fires
• High intensity stand replacing fires rare
• Fire frequency climate driven
• Fire suppression coincided with Anglo-American
  settlement

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• Ways to Study Historical Landscapes
• Packrat middens

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Packrats middens vegetation migration along
elevation gradients (Thompson 1990)
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• Ways to Study Historical Landscapes
• Field evidence

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• Ways to Study Historical Landscapes
• Land Surveys, Wills, Tax Rolls

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Section corner Quarter corner Meander corner
1 W Range 1 E
Township 48 N
6 miles
1 mile
4th Principal meridian
Township 1 N
Baseline
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• Land Surveys some uses and insights
• Determining the ecological niche of tree species
  (Whitney 1982)
• Determine fire regime in even-aged systems
  (Radeloff et al. 1999)
• Baseline in documenting land cover change (White
  and Mladenoff 1996)
• Baseline for ecological restoration (Parker 1997)

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• Ways to Study Historical Landscapes
• Aerial Photos, Maps, Landscape Photos

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Maps, Aerial Photos White and Mladenoff (1994)
Presettlement (1860s) Public Land
Surveys Post-settlement (1930s) Wisconsin
Land Economic Inventory Current (1989)
Color infrared Aerial photos
Process Broad-scale human disturbance Process
Forest succession
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• Ways to Study Historical Landscapes
• Laws, Diaries, Artwork

The soil is a red loam, supporting a heavy
forest of oak, pine, hickory, and maple, and
interspersed with occasional patches of highland
prairie. --Henry Rowe Schoolcrafts description
of the lower Fox River in Wisconsin.
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Artwork -- Mt. Trumbull, AZ (Moore et al. 1999)
1870 sketch by artist, H.H. Nichols
Mid-1990s photograph
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• All Data Sources have Strengths and
  Limitations!!!
• Environmental Record
• Pollen of some species over/under represented due
  to differences in dispersal or preservation.
• Extreme events can erase a previously recorded
  event.
• Written Record
• Bias or self-interest of observer.
• Knowledge of the observer.
• Context of the statement.

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• Multi-data Source
• Moore, et al. (1999) use historical data to
  determine reference conditions in Southwestern
  Ponderosa Pine Forests
• Fire regime
  Dendrochronology
• Vegetation composition Pollen Data
• Vegetation structure
  Dendrochronology,
  Historical records photos
  
  
  Pack rats

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All Data Sources have Strengths and Limitations!!!
P f (Production, Dispersal, Preservation,
Identification)
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Some important things we havelearned studying
historical landscapes

• Ecosystems are NOT static, deterministic,
  homogenous, or closed.
• Species, not communities, migrate latitudinally
  and elevationally with climate change.
• Biotic and abiotic legacies from disturbances
  can have prolonged effects on ecosystem
  composition, function, and structure.
• Human land use can have large and persistent
  affects on vegetation patterning and stream
  quality.
• Reconstruct disturbance regimes.
• And much, much more.

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Climatologists
Ecologists
Historians
Historical Ecology
Managers
Landscape Architects
Geographers
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References Davis, M. B. 1981. Quaternary
history and the stability of forest communities.
Pages 132 153 in West, D. C., H. H. Shugart,
and D. B. Botkin, editors. Forest Succession.
Springer-Verlag, New York, New York, USA.
Bissonette, J.A. 1997. Wildlife and landscape
ecology. Springer, New York, New York,
USA. Delcourt, H. R., P. A. Delcourt, and T.
Webb. 1983. Dynamic plant ecology the spectrum
of vegetation change in space and time.
Quaternary Science Review 1153-175. Egan, D.,
and E.A. Howell. 2001. The historical ecology
handbook a restorationists guide to reference
ecosystems. Island Press, Washington, D.C.,
USA. Franklin, J.F., and J.A. MacMahon. Messages
from a mountain. Science 2881183-1184. Landres,
P. B., P. Morgan, and F. J. Swanson. 1999.
Overview of the use of natural variability
concepts in managing ecological systems.
Ecological Applications 91179-1188. Moore,
M.M., W.W. Covington, and P.Z. Fule. 1999.
Reference conditions and ecological restoration
a southwestern ponerosa pine perspective.
Ecological Applications 91266-1277.
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References (cont.)
Parker, L. 1997. Restaging an evolutionary
drama thinking big on the Chequamegon and
Nicolet National Forests. Pages 218-219 in Kohm,
K.A., and J.F. Franklin, editors. Creating a
forestry for the 21st century the science of
ecosystem management. Island Press, Washington,
DC, USA. Radeloff, V. C., D. J. Mladenoff, H. S.
He, and M. S. Boyce. 1999. Forest landscape
change The northwest Wisconsin Pine Barrens
before European settlement and today. Canadian
Journal of Forest Research 291649-1659.
Russell, E.W.B. 1997. People and the land
through time linking ecology and history. Yale
University Press, New Haven, Connecticut,
USA. Thompson, R.S. 1990. Late Quaternary
vegetation and climate in the Great Basin Pages
200-239 in Betancourt, J.L., T.R. Van Devender,
and PS. Martin, editors. Packrat middens the
last 40,000 years of biotic chance. University
of Arizona press, Tucson, Arizona, USA. White,
M.A., and D.J. Mladenoff. 1994. Old-growth
forest landscape transitions from pre-European
settlement to present. Landscape Ecology
9191-205. Whitney, G. G. 1982. Vegetation-site
relationships in the presettlement forests of
northeastern Ohio. Botanical Gazette
143225-237.