Postfire Succession in an Adirondack Forest^*

* I thank Peter Grupe, Thomas Martin, Thomas Wahl, Stuart Buchanan, Richard Dixon, Angus Bright, Dick Ziegler, Thomas Ziegler, Tom Svatek, Martha Svatek, Wendy Svatek, Rachel Jamison, Kenneth Adams, Andreas Brede‐Buchenau, Charles Cogbill, Ray Curran, Lee Frelich, Mark Lindberg, Neil Pederson, J. Morgan Varner, Doug Pribyl, Joel Nelson, Julia Rauchfuss, Max Handler, Jerold Pepper, John Fraser Hart, and the anonymous reviewers. A Grant‐in‐Aid of Research, Artistry, and Scholarship from the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota helped me launch my research. I dedicate this article to the memory of M. Virginia Biggy, educator extraordinaire.

Abstract

Landscape diversity has increased with the surprising postfire establishment of aspen at upper elevations (700–945 meters above sea level) in the High Peaks of Adirondack Park in upstate New York. Tree seedlings returned quickly to the charred slopes west of Noonmark Mountain after an accidental fire consumed the forest in 1999. Aspen stands have replaced the spruce‐fir‐birch forests in the burned area even though mountain paper birch is expected to colonize burned sites at these elevations. Environmental conditions, historical events, and unique circumstances help explain why quaking aspen and bigtooth aspen rather than paper birch blanket the burned mountainside. Climate change over the past century to warmer, wetter conditions may have fostered this marked shift in species composition. In the unburned firebreak that people cleared to contain the flames, pin cherry has regenerated from seeds stored in the soil for nearly a century. The history of pin cherry on the site suggests that large fires or severe windthrow may have been more common in the region than was previously documented.

• Adirondack Park
• aspen
• fire
• New York State
• spruce‐fir forest
• vegetation change

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susy Svatek Ziegler

Dr. Ziegler is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455.