PARENT SESSION
Special Session - Applying landscape ecology in forests of the northern Great Lakes region Chair(s): Saunders, Sari¹, ¹ Michigan Technical University, Houghton, MI
Wednesday, March 31, 2004 1:00 PM - 5:20 PM Apollo Room 2

The Great Lakes Region has been a focal area for landscape ecological research during the past decade. Landscape ecologists have studied the patterns of ecological processes, such as carbon flux, decomposition, and natural disturbance regimes; and compositional or structural features, such as the diversity of fauna and flora. The interrelationships among these variables have been examined within focal ecosystems at the landscape level and over the mosaic of multiple ecosystems at a regional level. Both retrospective work and predictive modeling of management impacts have been undertaken on a variety of landscape ecosystems. In our symposium, we anticipate synthesizing the major discoveries of several active research groups to assess how this research (1) enhances understanding of the functioning of managed landscapes; and (2) guides management and policy actions that strive to meet multiple goals for restoration, conservation, recreation, and resource extraction. The symposium will highlight both the limitations and successes of this research to knowledge and management of these intensely modified landscapes. We hope that lessons learned from these groups will also be explored by the general landscape ecology community to promote the development of the science and its applications.

Using historical data to examine forest change at regional scales. ^*SCHULTE, LISA A. , ¹ Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Ames, IA, USA

ABSTRACT- Recent and emerging conservation issues such as old growth, fuel buildup, exotic invasives, global climate change, and the expanding wildland-urban interface require conservation planners to broaden the context of conditions considered to include regional scale and retrospective analyses. To meet this major informational need, I reconstructed spatiotemporal trends in forest composition and structure for the northern U.S. Lake States using subsection-level ecoregions as units of analysis. Historical data used include the original U.S. Public Land Survey data, which represent forest conditions prior to Euroamerican settlement (ca. mid-1800s), and Forest Inventory and Analysis data, which represent both post-settlement conditions (ca. 1930) and current trajectories (ca. 1980 – today). This analysis shows a diverse environmental history depending on the ecoregion considered; however, the general trend of forest change is toward historically unique conditions, rather than return to a pre-Euroamerican state. Today's forest is marked by a dominance of hardwoods; 93% of the 55 subsections across the region have lower relative dominance of conifers compared to presettlement. Aspen (both Populus grandidentata and P. tremuloides), sugar maple (Acer saccharum), and American basswood (Tilia americana) comprise the primary hardwood species that have replaced the conifers. The combination of timber harvesting and succession currently maintain the regional forest in either early or late successional hardwoods, with few opportunities for conifers or midsuccessional communities. Documenting both local and widespread changes in forest conditions provides conservation planners with a strong foundation for amending current management plans and practices.

KEY WORDS: U.S. Lake States, forest change, ecoregions, aspen, conservation planning