9408056 Foster The response of ecosystems and landscapes to disturbance has been a major emphasis of ecological research with most focus on episodic or pulse-type disturbances such as fire, wind, or forest cutting. Relatively little is known concerning the impact of long-term disturbances that affect large areas, such as regional land-use activity. Human activity is a critical disturbance process to evaluate because it is ubiquitous. Understanding the impact of human activity is important from an ecological perspective because it often involves processes and a magnitude of impact that are novel to the impacted biological systems. This research will address the following fundamental ecological questions: How does the institution of a novel disturbance regime alter vegetation organization in relation to prevailing environmental conditions and disturbance processes? At what rate do species assemblages reorganize as the intensity of disturbance changes? Following a decrease in regional disturbance does the vegetation reorganize according to prevailing environmental conditions, and does it revert towards its former composition? The primary data source for this research is a 2000-year vegetation and fire history record derived by fine resolution pollen and charcoal analysis of a network of 16 lakes in north-central Massachusetts. This approach provides a long record of regional vegetation pattern and dynamics, disturbance, and environmental relationships prior to European settlement. Cultural data, including archaeological surveys and decadal census data, will provide information on the pre-European context and indices of regional variation in land-use intensity during the historical period. %%% This approach of using long-term regional data on palaeoecology, archaeology, and environment will yield a new understanding to broad-scale human impacts on forested landscapes. These results will provide important insights into the organization and dynamics of vegetation and will be of general inte rest due to regional similarities with the land-use history of other areas. The results will be specifically applicable to the understanding, management, and conservation of the New England landscape.
