Dimension and Production Relations of Trees and Shrubs in the Brookhaven Forest, New York

Abstract

Extensive tracts of oak-pine forest grow on the level, sandy soils of glacial outwash derivation on Long Island, New York (Conard 1935). The forests are small and unimpressive to a forester. In mature stands older and larger pines (Pinus rigida Mill.) rise above a canopy of oaks (Quercus alba L., Q. coccinea Muench, and few Q. velutina Lam. and other species). The canopy is open, with light intensity below the trees sufficient to support a shrub stratum of small Vacciniaceae of high coverage (Reiners 1965). These forests are floristically related to the pine forests of New Jersey and the Coastal Plain southward, and to the pine heaths of the Great Smoky Mountains (Whittaker 1956), with which they share a number of major species. All of these forests have been subject to repeated fires, and dense, immature successional stands with Pinus rigida and scrub oak (Qtiercus ilicifolia Wang.) occur over extensive areas. The small size of the trees at Brookhaven has facilitated development of a system of detailed dimension analysis useful for various problems related to forest volume, biomass, production, surface and nutrient circulation. The methods are developments from forest measurements used by Burger (1929, 1953), Boysen Jensen (1932), Moller (1945, 1947), Ovington (1957), Ovington & Madgwick (1959a, b) and others, but are intended to advance beyond those measurements in important respects. They use the wood rings and bud-scale scars which mark annual increments of growth in some climates for assessment of current net production and nutrient movement in forests. They are designed specifically to deal with the complexities of many-aged stands including climaxes, as distinguished from plantations. The work is part of a long-term study of various aspects of the Brookhaven forest as an ecosystem, a study which includes experimental irradiation of a segment of the forest with gamma radiation from a cesium soturce (Woodwell 1962, 1965). The plants of the present study have been taken from the forest outside the area of radiation effects. Included in this report are results of dimension analysis of trees and shrubs as a first phase of the research on bio mass, production and nutrient circulation.