[Forest Service Shield]
John Neely
South Zone Fire and Fuels
Forest Service
White Mountain National Forest
p: 603-536-6261
c: 603-726-6264
f: 603-536-3685
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71 White Mountain Drive
Campton, NH 03223
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Caring for the land and serving people
From: Natalie Laura Cleavitt [mailto:nlc4@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2017 1:12 PM
To: Neely, John -FS <jneely@xxxxxxxxx>; Desmarais, Kenneth - FS
<kdesmarais@xxxxxxxxx>; Farina, Benjamin G -FS <bgfarina@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Thank you! Brief project summary
Hello Ken, John and Ben,
Thank you again for the very helpful meeting.
Ken, I am pasting in our current project summary. Would you like to review the
proposal when it is better fleshed out?
Historic and present day fire effects on Northern red oak in the tension zone
and implications for increased abundance
Summary
Northern red oak (Quercus rubra L.; QURU), a valuable timber and wildlife
species, is predicted to be favored by warmer, longer growing seasons and
become more abundant within the WMNF. This highly desirable species is already
being managed for in stands where it is present using shelterwood - prescribed
burn sequences. However, in order to understand the ecological potential of
QURU to respond to climate change, greater understanding of the unique impacts
of fire on oak regeneration from seed is needed. If fire is necessary for high
QURU regeneration success, then northward migration would lag climate change
considerably. However, relative to other species of oak, QURU has a more
ambiguous relationship to fire, and a number of studies using different time
scales and approaches have suggested that QURU can maintain itself on the
landscape in the absence of fire. Several Canadian studies have suggested that
QURU can establish in larger forest gaps and may be mainly dispersal limited at
the northern edge of its range. In addition, recent evidence suggests that QURU
may be particularly susceptible to belowground interactions that likely affect
its ability to regenerate though the implications for management of QURU
regeneration remain unexplored. We propose to leverage ongoing silvicultural
management for QURU in the tension zone between oak and northern hardwood
forest within the WMNF to increase our understanding of factors important in
controlling expansion of this species northward in New England. In particular,
we seek to clarify: 1) the differential impact of historic harvesting with and
without fire on QURU growth and establishment; and 2) the comparative role of
harvest with and without fire in present day QURU ecology, in relation to site
factors, particularly soil. The results of this study will inform management
and improve predictions of increased presence by QURU on the landscape with
climate change.
Overarching question: Does fire disturbance uniquely promote QURU establishment
and recruitment over northern hardwood species through processes in addition to
the competitive release common across many types of disturbance?
a. What are the comparative patterns in nearby historical cut and burns and
clearcut only for oak presence, growth release, and age relative to disturbance?
Method: Tree ring analysis on historic sites comparing the establishment and
growth history of oaks to other species in a paired design of historically cut
- historically burned after cutting.
b. How are present day silvicultural treatments of thinning and burning and
thinning alone impacting initial stages of seedling establishment, sprouting
and advanced regeneration growth?
Method: Comparison of QURU regeneration and seed production on recent and
currently planned shelterwood-prescribed burn and shelterwood only
c. How do soil properties, particularly as altered by burning, affect QURU
seedling establishment, subsequent growth, and root to shoot ratios?
Method: Examination of the plant-soil- feedbacks for QURU (and other species?)
using pot experiments and mycorrhizal work with soils from all the present day
study sites.
I look forward to working toward making this project a reality and would
welcome any feedback you have to make the design more useful for your
management needs.
best wishes,
nat
Research Associate
Dept. Natural Resources
Cornell University
Phone: 603-960-2519
Mailing address:
55 Perch Pond Road
Holderness, NH 03245
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