New England's Forest Landscape Ecological Legacies and Conservation Patterns Shaped by Agrarian History

After a reg ionwide two-cen tu ry per iod of deforestation and agrar ian expansion, the d ramat i c reduct ion in agr icul ture in N e w Eng land dur ing the past 150 years genera ted a wave of land-cover change . Fores t cover increased from less than 3 0 % to more than 7 5 % in m a n y regions. Despi te suppor t ing one of the densest h u m a n popula t ions in the nat ion, N e w Eng land is a m o n g the most heavi ly forested regions in the Uni ted States. T h e story of this remarkab le l andscape t ransformat ion is one of recovery of nature , the legacy of past events in the deta i ls of m o d e r n ecosys tems , and oppor tun i ty ma tched by chal lenge for conservat ion. T h e rees tab l i shment of forest ecosys tem character is t ics progressed unevenly, with composi t ional , s tructural , and functional attr ibutes exhibit ing different lags in development . In all cases , however, the m o d e r n distr ibution of vascular plant species, levels of forest b iomass , and soil s t ructure , chemist ry , and fertility are strongly condi t ioned by legacies of a var ied land-use history. T h e scale and gra in of this l andscape condi t ioning is control led by the physical env i ronmenta l templa te (e.g., topography, glacial geology, soils), geographica l location relative to