Environmental and successional relationships of the forest communities of the Porcupine River drainage, interior Alaska

Abstract

The structure and function of taiga ecosystems over a 3 600 000 ha area of northeastern interior Alaska was shown to be consistent with a hypothesis relating vegetative structure and dynamics to site nutrient status and soil temperature. Ordination of modal community descriptions and correlation of the ordination values with environmental parameters indicated that controls of vegetative structure and function found for the Fairbanks area, where the hypothesis was developed, can be applied to the interior Alaska taiga. High productivity sites were associated with warmer soil temperatures, smaller accumulation of soil organic layers, and lower C:N ratios. Lower productivity sites were associated with the opposite trends. Black spruce (Piceamariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) generally dominated the less productive sites, while white spruce (Piceaglauca (Moench) Voss) and hardwoods occupied the more productive sites. The successional trends described for other areas of interior Alaska appear to be valid for this remote study area.