dendrochronology dead trees resting places decay age of-trees coastal areas mountain forests trees forests Wildlife Habitats Forest Ecology
Tree rings were analysed in order to determine the time of death for 18 moribund and dead trees of 3 species used as roosts by bats on the upper slopes (700-1500 m altitude) of Mt. Cain, northern Vancouver Island, Canada. The species were yellow cedar (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis), western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) and western white pine (Pinus monticola). Some 29 increment core samples were crossdated with tree-ring chronologies of living trees to estimate when the trees died. After they die, yellow cedar trees deteriorate slowly and remain standing for as long as 200 years. In contrast, few western hemlock and western white pine snags persist longer than 100 years. The ages at which the sampled trees died were highly variable, with western white pine, western hemlock, and yellow cedar exhibiting the narrowest to widest range of ages, respectively. The findings highlight the long persistence of snags in high-altitude coastal forests and the centuries of ecological service that these trees provide to snag-dependent wildlife.
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Title
Chronological dating of high-elevation dead and dying trees on northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia
Creators
Amanda M. E. Kellner (Author)
Colin P. Laroque (Author)
Dan J. Smith (Author)
Alton S. Harestad (Author)
Publication Details
Northwest science., Vol.74(3), pp.242-247
Academic Unit
Northwest Science
Publisher
WSU Press
Identifiers
99900502081701842
Copyright
In copyright ; openAccess ; http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ ; http://purl.org/eprint/accessRights/OpenAccess