PARENT SESSION
Poster Session # 7: Restoration, Resource Management, and Conservation.
Monday, August 4 Presentation from 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM. SITCC Exhibit Hall B.
Forest encroachment into glades on Buffalo Mountain, Virginia.
Fuhrman, Nicholas*,1, Copenheaver, Carolyn1, Gellerstedt, Paul1, Povak, Nicholas1, Stephens, Laura1, 1 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
ABSTRACT- Buffalo Mountain Natural Area Preserve is a 400 ha preserve managed by the Virginia Natural Heritage Program. Buffalo Mountain is the highest mountain (1,190 m asl) in Floyd County, Virginia and home to 14 rare plant species and six different vegetation communities. The Natural Heritage stewards have expressed concerns that the grass-dominated glade communities on Buffalo Mountain are succeeding to forest. The objective of this study was to evaluate the risk and rate of forest encroachment within these glade openings. Three meter wide belt transects were established from the center of 6 glades passing through the glade-forest interface and into the interior of the forest. Within these belt transects, increment cores and disks were taken from all trees. These cores and disks were then aged to evaluate whether a relationship between distance from edge of glade and age of tree existed. In addition to the belt transects, a master chronology from twenty of the oldest white oak (Quercus alba L.) trees was created from cores sampled both within and outside of the belt transects. This allowed us to evaluate whether recent growth patterns in the dominant tree species on Buffalo Mountain have changed within the last 130 years.
Key words: white oak, forest succession, dendroecology