Land Use on the Southern New England and New York Coasts 1600-2001

The widespread influence of land use and natural disturbance on population, community, and landscape dynamics and the long-term legacy of disturbance on modern ecosystems requires that a historical, broad-scale perspective become an integral part of modern ecological studies and conservation assessment and planning. In previous studies, the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program has developed an integrated approach of paleoecological and historical reconstruction, meteorological modeling, air photo interpretation, GIS analyses, and field studies of vegetation and soils, to address fundamental ecological questions concerning the rates, direction, and causes of vegetation change, to evaluate controls over modern species and community distributions and landscape patterns, and to provide critical background for conservation and restoration planning. In the current study, we extend this approach to investigate the link between landscape history and the abundance, distribution, and dynamics of species, communities and landscapes of the Cape Cod to Long Island coastal region, including the islands of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and Block Island. The study region includes many areas of high conservation priority that are linked geographically, historically, and ecologically. Despite the compelling rationale for examining this coastal region as a whole and for comparing its related, though distinctive geographic areas, an integrated and comprehensive study of the region has never been undertaken. We are investigating regional controls over landscape patterns and community distribution and will focus in detail on the dynamics of sandplain communities, including grasslands, heathlands, barrens, and woodlands, which are unique components of this region and high priorities for conservation. In order to determine the historical and modern abundance and distribution of these community types, and to relate these to historical patterns of land use, fire, windstorms and other disturbances, we are developing: (1) GIS-based, spatially explicit maps of land use, land cover, environment, hurricane characteristics, and cultural features across the region for the historical period (17th C to present), (2) pollen and charcoal diagrams for critical areas where data are currently unavailable and an integrated analysis of data from all studies across this region, (3) analysis of the relationship between high priority communities (sandplain grasslands, heathlands, barrens, and related communities), rare species, and disturbance history, (4) revised conceptual ecological models for sandplain communities and recommendations for ecological goals and management approaches.