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Pre-contact Forest Structure
EPA Grant Number: R825433C031Subproject: this is subproject number 031 , established and managed by the Center Director under grant R825433
(EPA does not fund or establish subprojects; EPA awards and manages the overall grant for this center).
Center: EERC - Center for Ecological Health Research (Cal Davis)
Center Director: Rolston, Dennis E.
Title: Pre-contact Forest Structure
Investigators: Barbour, Michael
Institution: University of California - Davis
EPA Project Officer: Levinson, Barbara
Project Period: October 1, 1996 through September 30, 2000
RFA: Exploratory Environmental Research Centers (1992)
Research Category: Center for Ecological Health Research , Targeted Research
Description:
Objective:This project seeks to reconstruct old-growth forest vegetation of the Lake Tahoe watershed as it existed prior to significant Euroamerican contact (approximately 1850) and to quantify any changes since then that might have important ecological links to lake water quality.
Approach:Investigators completed a survey of approximately 400 vegetation polygons mapped by the Forest Service in 1970 as potentially containing pristine old-growth forest. Ten percent of those polygons contained vegetation and those stands were quantitatively sampled, every species being measured for at least canopy cover. They subjected the 38 stands to multivariate analyses, including cluster analysis, ordination, and simple linear regression against a dozen environmental factors. They also analyzed current aerial photographs of all basin vegetation, reduced the types to 36 (18 west-side + 18 east-side), and prepared GIS summary statistics on the area of each.
They summarized modern vegetation data for nearly 800 forest plots taken by the Forest Service in its Forest Inventory Analysis (FIA) on-going program, in order to have a quantitative summary of seral, second-growth forests that could be compared to our 38 plots of pristine old-growth. Finally, they attempted to recreate pre-contact forest structure and composition by: (1) summarizing land office records of witness trees, recorded during surveys in the 1870s; (2) analyzing data collected by Dr. Alan Taylor on the number and size of stumps left by clearcut harvests of old-growth forests that existed in the 1870s on the east side of Lake Tahoe; and (3) and interpreting anecdotal statements of early professional foresters at the turn of the century.
They also worked as part of a watershed assessment research team, convened by the Forest Service, to summarize current ecosystem health in the Lake Tahoe basin. Finally, they have begun to quantitatively characterize the immediate neighborhoods of each old-growth stand, developing a numerical scale that expresses the ecological distance of that neighborhood from old-growth status and the suitability of that neighborhood for such active management activities as prescribed fire and thinning.
Expected Results:The expected results are three-fold: (1) to link forest vegetation more closely to models of lake water quality; (2) to quantify meadow vegetation, the leading non-forest vegetation type in the basin; and (3) to apply our techniques to management issues in the basin. In order to link the vegetation data to water quality, investigators need to extrapolate some functional attributes of old-growth and second-growth forests.
Supplemental Keywords:Watershed, aquatic ecosystem, Sierra Nevada, mercury, atmospheric deposition, ecosystem assessment, mercury, lead, trace metals. , Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, Water, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, Scientific Discipline, RFA, ECOSYSTEMS, Ecosystem/Assessment/Indicators, Water & Watershed, Restoration, Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration, Aquatic Ecosystems & Estuarine Research, Terrestrial Ecosystems, Ecological Monitoring, Aquatic Ecosystem, Ecological Indicators, Biochemistry, Environmental Microbiology, Watersheds, Ecosystem Protection, Ecology and Ecosystems, Resources Management, water quality, ecological impact, lake ecosystem, forest tenure, watershed management, watershed restoration, ecosystem modeling, ecological restoration, deforestation, ecological research, aquatic habitat protection , ecosystem restoration, wetland restoration, forested basins, wetland plant species, conservation, GIS, forest ecosystems, aquatic ecosystems, ecosystem assessment, environmental stress, vegetation , lake ecosysyems, deterministic linkages, ecological assessment, forest conservation, forests, anthropogenic stress, restoration strategies, ecosystem stress, watershed assessment, ecological models, watershed forests, biodiversity, ecological effects, restoration planning
Progress and Final Reports:
1999 Progress Report
Final Report
Main Center Abstract and Reports:
R825433 EERC - Center for Ecological Health Research (Cal Davis)
Subprojects under this Center:
(EPA does not fund or establish subprojects; EPA awards and manages the overall grant for this center).
R825433C001 Potential for Long-Term Degradation of Wetland Water Quality Due to Natural Discharge of Polluted Groundwater
R825433C002 Sacramento River Watershed
R825433C003 Endocrine Disruption in Fish and Birds
R825433C004 Biomarkers of Exposure and Deleterious Effect: A Laboratory and Field Investigation
R825433C005 Fish Developmental Toxicity/Recruitment
R825433C006 Resolving Multiple Stressors by Biochemical Indicator Patterns and their Linkages to Adverse Effects on Benthic Invertebrate Patterns
R825433C007 Environmental Chemistry of Bioavailability in Sediments and Water Column
R825433C008 Reproduction of Birds and mammals in a terrestrial-aquatic interface
R825433C009 Modeling Ecosystems Under Combined Stress
R825433C010 Mercury Uptake by Fish
R825433C011 Clear Lake Watershed
R825433C012 The Role of Fishes as Transporters of Mercury
R825433C013 Wetlands Restoration
R825433C014 Wildlife Bioaccumulation and Effects
R825433C015 Microbiology of Mercury Methylation in Sediments
R825433C016 Hg and Fe Biogeochemistry
R825433C017 Water Motions and Material Transport
R825433C018 Economic Impacts of Multiple Stresses
R825433C019 The History of Anthropogenic Effects
R825433C020 Wetland Restoration
R825433C021 Sierra Nevada Watershed Project
R825433C022 Regional Transport of Air Pollutants and Exposure of Sierra Nevada Forests to Ozone
R825433C023 Biomarkers of Ozone Damage to Sierra Nevada Vegetation
R825433C024 Effects of Air Pollution on Water Quality: Emission of MTBE and Other Pollutants From Motorized Watercraft
R825433C025 Regional Movement of Toxics
R825433C026 Effect of Photochemical Reactions in Fog Drops and Aerosol Particles on the Fate of Atmospheric Chemicals in the Central Valley
R825433C027 Source Load Modeling for Sediment in Mountainous Watersheds
R825433C028 Stress of Increased Sediment Loading on Lake and Stream Function
R825433C029 Watershed Response to Natural and Anthropogenic Stress: Lake Tahoe Nutrient Budget
R825433C030 Mercury Distribution and Cycling in Sierra Nevada Waterbodies
R825433C031 Pre-contact Forest Structure
R825433C032 Identification and distribution of pest complexes in relation to late seral/old growth forest structure in the Lake Tahoe watershed
R825433C033 Subalpine Marsh Plant Communities as Early Indicators of Ecosystem Stress
R825433C034 Regional Hydrogeology and Contaminant Transport in a Sierra Nevada Ecosystem
R825433C035 Border Rivers Watershed
R825433C036 Toxicity Studies
R825433C037 Watershed Assessment
R825433C038 Microbiological Processes in Sediments
R825433C039 Analytical and Biomarkers Core
R825433C040 Organic Analysis
R825433C041 Inorganic Analysis
R825433C042 Immunoassay and Serum Markers
R825433C043 Sensitive Biomarkers to Detect Biochemical Changes Indicating Multiple Stresses Including Chemically Induced Stresses
R825433C044 Molecular, Cellular and Animal Biomarkers of Exposure and Effect
R825433C045 Microbial Community Assays
R825433C046 Cumulative and Integrative Biochemical Indicators
R825433C047 Mercury and Iron Biogeochemistry
R825433C048 Transport and Fate Core
R825433C049 Role of Hydrogeologic Processes in Alpine Ecosystem Health
R825433C050 Regional Hydrologic Modeling With Emphasis on Watershed-Scale Environmental Stresses
R825433C051 Development of Pollutant Fate and Transport Models for Use in Terrestrial Ecosystem Exposure Assessment
R825433C052 Pesticide Transport in Subsurface and Surface Water Systems
R825433C053 Currents in Clear Lake
R825433C054 Data Integration and Decision Support Core
R825433C055 Spatial Patterns and Biodiversity
R825433C056 Modeling Transport in Aquatic Systems
R825433C057 Spatial and Temporal Trends in Water Quality
R825433C058 Time Series Analysis and Modeling Ecological Risk
R825433C059 WWW/Outreach
R825433C060 Economic Effects of Multiple Stresses
R825433C061 Effects of Nutrients on Algal Growth
R825433C062 Nutrient Loading
R825433C063 Subalpine Wetlands as Early Indicators of Ecosystem Stress
R825433C064 Chlorinated Hydrocarbons
R825433C065 Sierra Ozone Studies
R825433C066 Assessment of Multiple Stresses on Soil Microbial Communities
R825433C067 Terrestrial - Agriculture
R825433C069 Molecular Epidemiology Core
R825433C070 Serum Markers of Environmental Stress
R825433C071 Development of Sensitive Biomarkers Based on Chemically Induced Changes in Expressions of Oncogenes
R825433C072 Molecular Monitoring of Microbial Populations
R825433C073 Aquatic - Rivers and Estuaries
R825433C074 Border Rivers - Toxicity Studies