Abstract
Forest development patterns following the 1938 hurricane were evaluated in 45 continuous forest inventory (CFI) plots monitored from 1955 to 2011 at the Caroline A. Fox Research and Demonstration Forest (Fox), in Hillsborough, New Hampshire. Long-term plot data provide a record of landscape-level changes in a managed forest setting. Changes in density, basal area, mortality, removal, and recruitment demonstrate the effects of forest management on growth and forest structure through time. Tree density peaked in 2001 at 716.1 trees/hectare, but the basal area continued to increase from 18.8 m2/ha in 1955 to 44.7 m2/ha 2011 despite forest management activities. Hemlock and red maple dominate stem recruitment. Tree mortality rates have increased from 0.26%/year 1955–1965 to 1.03%/year 2001–2011, while removal rates have dropped from 1.04%/year to 0.44%/year.
Highlights
Forest development patterns following a hurricane can provide a baseline for forest management that mimics a natural disturbance
Basal area accumulation was dominated by eastern hemlock (3.7 to 13.0), northern red oak (2.1 to 7.5), and eastern white pine (5.1 to 11.9)
Forests like like Fox, Fox, which which were were struck struck by the 1938 hurricane, experienced experienced widespread widespread damage damage followed followed by extensive salvage operations, setting back post-agriculture successional successionaltrends
Summary
Forest development patterns following a hurricane can provide a baseline for forest management that mimics a natural disturbance. Few studies of permanent plots are of sufficient duration to document how forest composition is changing through successional time in New England [1,2,3,4], and fewer still follow managed forests [5,6,7]. The influences of the 1938 hurricane on New England forests provide insights into post-disturbance recovery patterns and succession in a largely single cohort forest [1,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. A combination of recruitment of new stems, natural mortality and removals, reflect both the natural disturbance regime, the competitive interaction between species, and the impacts of forest management. Post-hurricane succession primarily reflects an even-aged stand development pattern [17]
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