Case Study: Provisional, Forested Ecological Sites in the Northern Appalachians and Their State-and-Transition Models

Abstract

On the Ground • The identification of unique areas of vegetative potential across the Northern Appalachians is complicated by a long land-use history of vegetation management. • We introduce provisional ecological sites and associated state-and-transition models for the region, which can be differentiated by latitudinal drivers of: precipitation and temperature; local parent material and resulting soil differences; and landscape position, slope, or aspect. • Identification of ecological sites and associated States or Phases in the Northern Appalachians provides land managers with quantifiable benchmarks for assessing forest compositional shifts due to natural or anthropogenic disturbance.