Objectives: To determine how red spruce and balsam fir tree growth is driven by climate and acidic deposition in mountains of the northeastern United States.
Principal Investigator: Jay W. Wason, Colin M. Beier, John J. Battles, Martin Dovciak
Laboratory: SUNY ESF
Recommended Citation: Wason J, Beier C, Battles J, and Dovciak M. 2013. Red spruce and balsam fir tree cores from mountains in the Northeastern United States.
Project Contents: Data for 40 Plots, 246 Trees, 246 Cores
Project Period: 2012-01-01 to 2019-10-09
Species:
Data License: 
What's this?Description: This project integrates with our broader research on montane spruce-fir forest responses to environmental change. In this project, we collected tree cores from red spruce and balsam fir trees along elevation gradients on 10 mountains across the northeastern US. We analyzed the tree rings to determine the extent to which climate and acidic deposition have driven recent tree growth patterns.
Related Publications: No related publications
Project Metadata
Taxonomic standard used: USDA Plants Database
How plots were selected: Plots were selected from our larger dataset of spruce-fir forest vegetation plots across the region (Wason, J. W., and M. Dovciak. 2017. Tree demography suggests multiple directions and drivers for species range shifts in mountains of Northeastern United States. Global Change Biology 23: 3335–3347.). On 10 mountains, we selected vegetation plots that corresponded to the highest, lowest, and a middle elevation range for canopy sized trees on each mountain.
How trees were selected: At each plot, the first 5 dominant health trees > 20 cm DBH (diameter at breast height) were selected for coring.
Exclusion of trees (if any): Trees that were smaller than 20 cm DBH, unhealthy trees (visual inspection), and trees that were not in a dominant canopy position were not selected for coring.
How cores were collected: Cores were collected at breast height, perpendicular to the elevation contour. Two cores were collected per tree from opposite sides.
How cores were processed: Samples were mounted and sanded. Raw ring widths were measured using a sliding scale micrometer (Velmex, Inc., Bloomfield, NY) and Acu-Rite encoder (Heidenhain 178 Corp., Shaumberg, IL). For cores that did not reach the tree pith, we used a template of concentric circles and the earliest 5 years of growth to estimate the age at breast height.
Exclusion of cores (if any): Cores with a series intercorrelation below 0.4 were removed from the dataset. This excluded 9% of red spruce and 15% of balsam fir trees.
Added to the database: 10/09/2019
Last modified: 10/09/2019