Garrett Hess Prin. Nat. Resc. Mngmt

10/09/2015

Objective: To collect data from a sample plot of the larger forest for an ongoing forest inventory and management program at the Kilmer Woods section of the RUEP. This will also be compared to

the sampled plot with other forest stands.

Materials and Methods: .We Broke off into 4 groups .We were assigned to plot C2R8

.The plot consisted of a large square plot with dimensions of 100ft x 100 ft (area of 0.23 acres)

.We walked at different angles facing north to set up our sub-plot

.We determined the slope and aspect.

.For the slope we held the compass parallel to the slope and we measured in angular from the swinging back arrow.

.The aspect we determined by facing down the slope.

.We measured the diameter at breast height (DBH) by using the Tape reel on the side of inches

of diameter. . We did this for each tree that is greater than 1 inch in diameter .Converted our DBH measurements to basal area using this equation: Basal area (ft2) = (/4 * 144)

* d2

.For an entire acre we multiplied our basal area by 4.34 to get (ft^2/acre).

. We measured the percentage of the tree cover, shrub cover, tree seedlings, herb litter, grass cover,leaf, litter,and bare soil. From the percenatges we set them up based on a classification scheme we were given.

.We took the coordinate points of all our tree species and mapped them on ArcMap. We entered our data into an excel and generated graphs for the Basal area, percent stem plot ,

and the cover classes.

Results:

For the cover class I can infer that there is barely if any bare soil present because of the percentage of leaf

coverage of the forest floor in our sample plot. This is to be expected because it is fall, so this plot is

experiencing a transition into leaf off season. The bare soil received a cover class of 1 in all areas of our

sub-plot.The grass cover is noticeably highest in the North West region of our subplot with cover class 5.

The second highest was the South west region with a cover class of 3 making the North West and South

West above the average of 2.5. The herbaceous litter was uniform throughout our sub-lot with a slight

higher value in the South West region of 4, above the average of 3.25. Tree seedling cover class was

higher in the South West and North West of the sub-plot region with cover class 5 and 4 respectively. The

shrub coverage was highest in the North East 3 and South West (4). As for the Forest -Secchi boards there

was a noticeable obstruction in the South East and South West area of our entire plot with values of 4 and

5 cover class respectively for native species. The canopy cover was highest in the North East region of

our plot and the South East and North West had the same percentage of 4 in coverage. The South West

side had the lowest tree canopy cover and was below the average in the tree canopy cover in our plot. The

tree cover canopy was highest in the NE above the average of the cover class. The SE and NW had the

same value of a cover class of 4 and the SW had the lowest value of 3(Table1). The median DBH was

reported to be 8.7 inches and the mean DBH was 7 inches (Table 3). The tree density was measured by

the number of stems per acre for each of the classes of DBH sizes. Based on our data set the 5-10 DBH

had the highest density (stems/acre) of 60.9. The second highest was the 0-5 DBH which had a density of

39.1 stems/acre.The 20-25 and 25-30 DBH had equal densities of 4.34 stems/acre (Table 2) .As for the

basal area per acre the 5-10 DBH and the 25-30 DBH had very similar values regarding their Basal areas

with a value of 16.00(ft^2/acre) with the trees in the diameter class of 25-30 making up 18.5% of the

total basal area and 16.671(ft^2/acre) making up 19.3% of the 5-10 DBH. The 10-15 DBH had the

highest basal area with a value of 26.09(ft^2/acre) making up 30.3% of the total basal area. The 0-5 DBH

had the lowest basal area with a value of 1.9(ft^2/acre)/2.2%, and the second lowest value was the 20-25

DBH with a value of 9.947(ft^2/acre) an 11.5% of basal area. The 15-20DBH had a value of

15.2(ft^2/acre) and a percebtage of 17.6% (Tables 4).

Chart of Cover Classes

Table1. The mean of the shrub coverage was 2.25 with the SW and NE having above average values. The tree seedlings were most numerous in the SE and the NW around a Beech tree in our sub-plot suggesting a colony dispersal. The canopy cover had an average of 4. The herbaceous litter was around. 3.25 as the mean which is average in the classification scale.

Chart 1. The bare soil shows a continuous even spread in regards to having a low cover class. Leaf litter is the same in all directions of our sub-plot suggesting an approaching leaf off season. The SW direction shows a noticeable high value in: Herb Litter, Tree Seedlings, Shrub % Cover.

Chart 2. The percent stems if highest in the 5-10 DBH and lowest in the 25-30 and 30-35 DBH. The middle DBH value appears to be within the 0-5 and 10-15 DBH. Our percent stem is an intermediate of the mature forest and the 50 year old forest; however, appearing to be more similar to the 50 year old forest based on the 5-10 DBH and the 0-5 and 10-15 DBH.

Table 2. The 5-10 DBH had the highest density (stems/acre) of 60.9. The second highest was the 0-5 DBH which had a density of 39.1 stems/acre. The 20-25 and 25-30 DBH had equal densities of 4.34 stems/acre and 15-20DBH had 8.6.

Chart 3. Our dataset is very similar to the 50 year old forest because we do not have trees that exceed a DBH of 25-30. Plus a median DBH of 10-15 seems to be greater in a 50 year old forest. The larger the DBH from looking at our data the older the trees present.

Table 3. The median DBH was reported to be 8.7 inches and the mean DBH was 7 inches

Tables 4. .As for the basal area per acre the 5-10 DBH and the 25-30 DBH had very similar values

regarding their Basal areas with a value of 16.00(ft^2/acre) with the trees in the diameter class of 25-30 making up 18.5% of the total basal area and 16.671(ft^2/acre) making up 19.3% of the 5-10 DBH. The 10-15 DBH had the highest basal area with a value of 26.09(ft^2/acre) making up 30.3% of the total basal area. The 0-5 DBH had the lowest basal area with a value of 1.9(ft^2/acre)/2.2%, and the second lowest value was the 20-25 DBH with a value of 9.947(ft^2/acre) an 11.5% of basal area.

Table 5. Trees that dominated in terms of numbers. FAGR= Fagus grandifolia and CAOV=Carya glabra.

Table 6. Shows the different tree species and the DBHs they fall into with their basal area per acre.

Discussion and Conclusion:

The tree species that dominated were the FAGR and the CAOV in terms of numbers and they were also

the dominant species when it came to Basal area percentage (Table 5). There were a few large trees and a

decent amount of small trees. This is shown in Table 2 where the different species were given along with

their DBHs. The stems per DBH range are numerous in the smaller DBHs from the 10-15DBH range and

down. The large species was Quercus velutina (QUVE) and the smallest species were, Acer rubrum,

Carya Ovate, Fagus grandifolia, and Cornus florida looking at a DBH of 0-5. The tree canopy was

average so somewhere in between open and closed in some areas. This is explained by the averages of the

tree covers and the understory coverage from the Secchi boards. The sechi boards show very little

understory with an average of 2.25 class cover. Which can explain why our subplot had values that had

classification classes between 2 and 3. However, deer grazing was not incorporated or measured. When

comparing our plot to the early successional forest I notice that our DBHs have more variation where an

early successional forest would have tree species of small DBH plus the stem density would be less

because stem density relates to the trees per acre and not herbaceous tree species. Comparing our forest

with a mature forest I can see that the stem densities of different DBH sizes are more for mature forests

because they have older trees present based on the size of the DBHs. With the basal area percentage per

acre I notice the DBH size of 30-35 make up the basal area of the entire acre which is greater than 35%

where for a 50 year old forest a smaller DBH of 10-15 make up a large percentage of the volume of the

entire acre which is the case with Chart 3.

Discussion and Conclusion: