Vegetation and Two Indices of Fire on the Delmarva Peninsula

Abstract

KIRWAN, J. L. (College of Natural Resources, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061), and H. H. SHUGART (Department of Environmental Sciences, Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903). Vegetation and two indices of fire on the Delmarva Peninsula. J. Torrey Bot. Soc. 127:44-50. 2000. Vegetation, soil charcoal, and fire modeling measurements were used to test the hypothesis that beech (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.) is an indicator of long-term fire history on the Delmarva Peninsula. Three forest communities were determined using principal components analysis, and beech and red maple (Acer rubrum L.) were shown to correlate negatively and significantly with fire. These results confirm the observations of early ecologists who recognized disturbance as a major influence on southeastern coastal plain forests.