Forest Ecology and Management in Jack Pine-Dominated Ecosystems
An important focus of our lab is how disturbances shape the ecology and management of jack pine-dominated ecosystems – both forests and barrens – in the Lake States. Fire is an obvious disturbance agent in these ecosystems, and much of our work in this area focuses on impacts of fire suppression and post-fire succession on jack pine ecosystem structure and diversity.
Jack pine ecosystems in this region are dominated by management for the formerly federally endangered Kirtland’s warbler, which requires large stands of dense young jack pine typically provided by extensive plantations. Our lab attempts to identify the historical range of variability of various factors of jack pine ecosystems to determine how management of these landscapes for Kirtland’s warbler maintains or alters the abundance, distribution, configuration, and structure of jack pine forests. Past work has examined microclimate, physiography, soil, and vegetation of this landscape in detail to identify landscape ecosystems dominated by jack pine. This work has included the development of plant ecological species groups to distinguish jack pine-dominated ecosystem from one another in the field. Our lab has worked to examine the effectiveness of these species groups over the course of succession.
Over the past several years our lab has examined how well Kirtland’s warbler management fits into the historical range of variability of young jack pine forests in Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula. We have used historical records of forest vegetation and reconstructed fire regimes to estimate the pre-settlement coverage of young jack pine forests (< 20 years) for comparison to current coverage to determine the appropriateness of the current levels of warbler management.
A post-fire feature unique to crown fire systems in this region are “stringers”, or long strips of forest left unburned at the flanks of an advancing fire front. These biological legacies are important sources of biodiversity in a burned landscape, and likely have important ecological ramifications on the post-fire landscape. We are working to examine the influence of stringers on plant communities, bird communities, and adjacent forest structure as the surrounding landscape recovers from fire.
“Jack pine barrens” were an important cover type on the landscape prior to European settlement, and our lab is active in trying to understand and quantify the origin, distribution, and dynamics of pine barrens, as well as their importance in shaping fire behavior on the landscape. Towards this effort, we are undergoing a series of studies examining post-fire jack pine regeneration, geographical variation in cone serotiny, and use of barrens by wildlife species such as upland sandpipers. Recently, our lab used the LANDIS-II model to examine the interacting effects of wildfire and climate change on the distribution and abundance of jack pine barrens across the northern Lower Peninsula.
Finally, we are sampling a series of plots in jack forests of northern Lower Michigan established in the mid 1980s and re-sampled in the 1990s. Re-sampling these plots a third time will provide a 30-year time sequence with which to examine changes in forest structure, woody and herbaceous ground vegetation, and the accumulation of forest fuels. We hope to use these data together with a series of forest succession and fire behavior models to predict the effects of succession on the likelihood and behavior of future wildfires in the region.
Related funding at Wayne State:
Joint Fire Sciences Program – (Co-PI with R.G. Corace, P.C. Goebel, and E. Toman). 2010-2013. Integrating fuels reductions, barrens restoration, and plantation structural enhancement in endangered Kirtland’s warbler habitat management. $214,532.
Joint Fire Science Program (PI). 2014-2016. Can the arrangement of pine barrens mediate the spread of wildfires under various climate change scenarios? $20,833.
Joint Fire Sciences Program (PI). 2015-2019. Assessing 30 years of changes in vegetation and fuels following wildfire in jack pine forests of northern Lower Michigan. $216,071.
USDA – Agriculture and Food Research Initiative – (Co-Pi with D.E. Rothstein, R.E. Froese, R. Miller, and S. Ziegler.). 2015-2020. A silvicultural system for conserving biodiversity and enhancing ecosystem services in xeric jack pine forests of the Lake States Region. $499,986.
Related publications at Wayne State:
Tucker, M.M., and D.M. Kashian. 2018. Pre-fire forest remnants affect post-fire plant community structure and composition. Forest Ecology and Management 408: 103-111.
Kashian, D.M., J.R. Sosin, P.W. Huber, M.M. Tucker, and J. Dombrowski. 2017. A neutral modeling approach for designing spatially heterogeneous jack pine plantations in northern Lower Michigan, USA. Landscape Ecology 32: 1117-1131.
Tucker, M.M., R.G. Corace III, D.T. Cleland, and D.M. Kashian. 2016. Long term effects of managing for an endangered songbird on the heterogeneity of a fire-prone landscape. Landscape Ecology 31: 2445-2458.
Kashian, D.M., R.G. Corace, L.M. Shartell, D. Donner, and P. Huber. 2012. Variability and persistence of post-fire biological legacies in jack pine-dominated forests of northern Lower Michigan. Forest Ecology and Management 263: 148–158.
Fire is an obvious disturbance agent in these ecosystems, and much of our work in this area focuses on impacts of fire suppression and post-fire succession on jack pine ecosystem structure and diversity.
determine how management of these landscapes for Kirtland’s warbler maintains or alters the abundance, distribution, configuration, and structure of jack pine forests. Past work has examined microclimate, physiography, soil, and vegetation of this landscape in detail to identify landscape ecosystems dominated by jack pine. This work has included the development of plant ecological species groups to distinguish jack pine-dominated ecosystem from one another in the field. Our lab has worked to examine the effectiveness of these species groups over the course of succession.
Over the past several years our lab has examined how well Kirtland’s warbler management fits into the historical range of variability of young jack pine forests in Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula. We have used historical records of forest vegetation and reconstructed fire regimes to estimate the pre-settlement coverage of young jack pine forests (< 20 years) for comparison to current coverage to determine the appropriateness of the current levels of warbler management.
sources of biodiversity in a burned landscape, and likely have important ecological ramifications on the post-fire landscape. We are working to examine the influence of stringers on plant communities, bird communities, and adjacent forest structure as the surrounding landscape recovers from fire.
Recently, our lab used the LANDIS-II model to examine the interacting effects of wildfire and climate change on the distribution and abundance of jack pine barrens across the northern Lower Peninsula.