Confronting the Issue of Invasive Native Tree Species Due to Land Use Change in the Eastern United States

Brice B. Hanberry
Additional contact information
Brice B. Hanberry: Rocky Mountain Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Rapid City, SD 57702, USA

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 2, 1-9

Abstract: The increased abundance of historically rare native tree species is symptomatic of land-use change, which causes ecosystem regime shifts. I tested for an association between mean agricultural area, a proxy for land-use change, and native tree species. I first modeled agricultural area during the years 1850 to 1997 and the historical and current percent composition of tree genera, along with the dissimilarity and difference between the historical and current composition, for the northern part of the eastern U.S. I then modeled agricultural area and current genera and species for the eastern U.S. and regionally. For the northeast, agricultural area was most associated ( R 2 of 78%) with the current percentage of elms and a diverse, uncommon “other” genera. For the eastern U.S., Ulmus , Juglans , Prunus , boxelder ( Acer negundo ), black cherry ( Prunus serotina ), and hackberry ( Celtis occidentalis ) best predicted agricultural area ( R 2 of 66%). Regionally, two elm and ash species, black walnut ( Juglans nigra ), mockernut hickory ( Carya tomentosa ), red maple ( Acer rubrum ), sweetgum ( Liquidambar styraciflua ), and American sycamore ( Platanus occidentalis ) increased with agricultural area. Increases in historically rare and diverse species associated with agricultural area represent an overall pattern of invasive native tree species that have replaced historical ecosystems after land-use change disrupted historical vegetation and disturbance regimes.

Keywords: agriculture; disturbance; diversity; encroachment; historical; invasive; native; regime shift; state transition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/2/161/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/2/161/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:2:p:161-:d:728983

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().