Site Report: The Mountain
Prepared by Jazmine Russell, Corey Reichler, and Michael Verschoor-Kirss
Edited by Prof. Stone
September 25, 2011
Location and Topography
The site is located in Oakland, Maine, at 44 32'52.81"N, -69 53'26.61"W. The sampling was done along the main loop trail. The topography is moderately sloping, with a south/southwesterly southeasterly aspect.
Figure 1. Terrain map of The Mountain in Oakland, ME. The forest was sampled at location indicated by green arrow (44 32'52.81"N, -69 53'26.61"W)
(Actually, that’s the way we came in, but we sampled off on the SSE slope.)
Soils
The granite bedrock is broken up into large boulders on this talus slope, and in many sampling locations, no mineral soil was found. Large boulders are strewn about the soil surface, and dDepth obtained by soil corers ranges from 0 to 20 cm. Tthe organic layer is 2 to 2.5 cm deep. The parent materialsoil is sandy loam formed on unsorted glacial till, over bedrock with a pH in the B layer of 5.5, and visible soil horizons. The soils are mapped as Berkshire very stony fine sandy loam. The thin thick organic layer and lack of an E horizon shows that organic matter is breaking down fairly quicklyslowly. The soil appears to be moderately moist, and supply an adequate supply of nutrients.lack of soil makes the site exceedingly dry.
Woody Plants
This forest mainly consists of the American beech (Fagusgrandifolia) and eastern hemlock trees (Tsugacanadensis) with the two species consisting of over 2/3 of the sampled stems and over half of the basal area (Ttable 1). This two two-species dominance would have been even more pronounced if there hadn’t been some large red maples (Acer rubrum) and red oaks (Quercusrubra) sampled (table 1). The final, and minor contributor to this area was the ironwood (Ostryavirginiana), which was only found at one plot (table 1).
The red oaks in this plot were roughly 200 years old, with a smattering of younger trees (~30-50 years). The understory was reasonably open, which is unsurprising given the boulder-laden landscape, and consisted mainly of smaller hemlock and beech saplings. This site supports roughly 987 680 trees per hectare with a basal area of 99 46 m2/hectare.[CC1]
Table 1. Relative density, dominance, and importance values of trees > 10 cm found in four 25 m2 plots in the xeric forest at the Mountain.
Species / Rel. Dens. / Rel. Dom. / Rel. Freq. / I.V.Red Maple (A. rubrum) / 0.13 / 0.29 / 0.4 / 0.82
American Beech
(F. grandifolia) / 0.39 / 0.38 / 0.4 / 1.17
Ironwood (O. virginiana) / 0.10 / 0.01 / 0.2 / 0.31
E. Hemlock (T. canadensis) / 0.29 / 0.17 / 0.6 / 1.06
Red Oak (Q. rubra) / 0.1 / 0.15 / 0.4 / 0.65
Land Use and Prospects
Because of its moderate slope and the presence of large boulders the land was not likely used for agriculture or grazing. There may have been selectedwas probably logging at the site, but due to the lack of a developed understory, and the mid-to-late successional statues of the trees found there, it is unlikely logging hasthe presence of older oaks suggests that logging has not occurred in the recent past. The area is used for non-motorized recreation, but soil compaction and degradation is contained within clearly marked trails.
The forest should maintain it’s current state at the site, with the exception of disturbance causing open gaps to be filled by earlier successional trees. Because of the presence of Beech trees in the site, bBeech bark disease has the potential to alter the site by causing beech trees to send up multiple sprouts.
Authors
Corey created the PowerPoint presentation, as well as contributed to the write up. Michael put data into the woody plants spreadsheet and summarized the data for that section. Jazmine wrote up the location and topography, soils and land use sections.
[CC1]There is reason to be suspicious about these values. I think some of your classmates are measuring circumference, rather than diameter, inflating both values. I’ve substituted values from past years.