Dendrochronology in Florida

[zazoolka]

Does anyone know of dendrochronology studies which have addressed historical fire regimes in Florida? Who has conducted these studies and where? Thanks!

[Joe Roise]

Does anyone know of dendrochronology studies which have addressed historical fire regimes in Florida? Who has conducted these studies and where? Thanks!
good question...... I only know about studies in the Appalachians
Here are some of those. Maybe check through the Tall Timbers Library. I bet they have some. Let me know what you find.

Abrams, M. D., Orwig, D. A., and Dockry, M. J. Journal of Ecology, 84[3], 353-363. 1996. A 300-year history of disturbance and canopy recruitment for co-occuring white pine and hemlock on the Allegheny Platueau, USA

Abrams, M. D. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 27[7], 994-1002. 1997.
Dendrochronology and successional status of two contrasting old-growth oak forests in the Blue Ridge Mountains, U.S.A

Abrams, M. D., Orwig, D. A., and Demeo, T. E. 2000, Richmond, Kentucky , 46-55 Newtown Square, PA: USDA Forest Service, Northeastern Research Station. General Technical Report NE-274. Fire and the ecological history of oak forests in the eastern United States

Abrams, M. D. and Orwig, D. A .Journal of Ecology, 83[1], 123-133. 1995.
Dendrochronological analysis of successional dynamics for a presettlement-origin white-pine-mixed-oak forest

[brenstrillium]

Dendrochronology has been somewhat scarce in FL due to the difficulty of finding trees that produce annual growth rings with enough variation in the rings for crossdating. The trees in FL tend to be warm, wet, and happy much of the time! However, there have been a few successful studies looking specifically at fire questions. Here are the most recent I have come across:

Harley, Grissino-Mayer, and Horne. 2011. Dendrochronology of Pinus elliottii in the lower Florida Keys: chronology development and climate response. Tree-Ring Research, 67(1), p. 39-50.

Henderson (2006). Dendroclimatological analysis and fire history of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain. Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation, University of Tennessee

Huffman, Platt, Grissino-Mayer, and Boyce. 2004. Fire history of a barrier island slash pine (Pinus elliottii) savannah. Natural Areas Journal, 24(3).

Harley et al. (2011) sampled and dated fire scars and growth rings of slash pine on Big Pine Key in the Florida Keys to establish the usefulness of slash pine to dendrochronology and examine the trees’ climate response. This work successfully demonstrated that slash pine in south Florida produce annual growth rings with enough sensitivity to be used for dendrochronological studies. Slash pine growing on Big Pine Key showed a positive growth response to growing season precipitation and a negative response to high late summer temperatures.

Henderson (2006) examined fire scars and growth rings of longleaf pine on Eglin Air Force Base in the FL panhandle to determine climate response and fire history. Henderson determined that prior to European settlement, the longleaf pine ecosystems at Eglin experienced a fire return interval of 6.4 years with low intensity fires.

Huffman et al. (2004) examined fire scars and annual growth rings of slash pine on Little St. George Island, FL to quantify the fire history of the pine savanna on this barrier island. Periods of time without fire suppression activities exhibited a mean fire return interval of four years with most fires taking place during the growing season.

[javadth]

use this link http://www.forestencyclopedia.net/p/p231 for info

[Myakka12]

(04-05-2011 11:55 AM)zazoolka Wrote:  Does anyone know of dendrochronology studies which have addressed historical fire regimes in Florida? Who has conducted these studies and where? Thanks!

Jean Huffman published "Historical Fire Regimes in Southeastern Pine Savannas." She used dendrochronologically dated fire scars from stumps of old growth longleaf pines in a coastal mainland pine savanna and from dead slash pines on a coastal barrier island to explore fire regimes. The fire history for the mainland spanned from 1592-1883 (pre-settlement) and the barrier island history was 1864-2000. Very interesting! It should inspire burners to start questioning typical assumptions on historic fire returns in north Florida.