Response of vegetation to climate-driven cycles of coastal disturbance along Lake Superior, USA
Loope WL, Mceachern AK, Anderton JB. 1994. Response of vegetation to climate-driven cycles of coastal disturbance along Lake Superior, USA. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America. 75(2):136
Changes in the levels of Lake Superior since the last glaciation can be inferred from buried soils of the Grand Sable Dunes of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, MI. Rising lake levels destabilized the dunes' bluff edge. Wind carried finer particulates up on top of the dunes, burying forests and the soils that developed as they grew. Organic materials from buried soils were dated using carbon-14 measurement. Periods of relative stability that allowed forest growth and soil profile development were punctuated by 5-7 climate-driven burial episodes. Vegetation transects were established in forest patches and open dunes. Results were compared to aerial photographs (1939 to 1983) to determine recent differences in jack pine (Pinus banksiana) cover. Journals of early explorers and General Land Office survey notes were also studied. Results conclude that size and shape of forest patches have changed considerably over the last 150 yrs. Trees in these patches range in age from 20-106 yrs. Evidence suggests that there have been numerous changes in the vegetation patterns on the Grand Sable Dunes in the last 5500 yrs., alternating between forest growth and stabilization (lower lake levels) and burial of vegetation by blowing sand as the result of rising lake levels. These habitats are host to several disturbance adapted "fugitive plants".
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Loope, Walter; Mceachern, Anna; Anderton, John
- Units
- PIRO
- Keywords
- Climate Change, Disturbance, Dunes, Ecology, Grand Sable Dunes, History, Holocene, lake level change, Physical Sciences, Plant Studies, Soils, Vegetation