uid=HFR,o=lter,dc=ecoinformatics,dc=org
all
public
read
doi:10.6073/pasta/944199f2497a20ff7ca1346509e7d2f4
Witness Tree Data in Southern New England and Long Island 1640-1999
Brian
Hall
Glenn
Motzkin
John
Burk
Matthias
Burgi
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9681-601X
Researcher
Charles
Cogbill
Researcher
Erin
Largay
Researcher
2023
English
Early surveyors' witness-tree records from initial land divisions are often used to reconstruct the vegetation at the time of European settlement and before extensive Euro-American land use. The following description of methods comes from the published paper (Hall, B., G .Motzkin, D. R. Foster, M. Syfert and J. Burk. 2002. Three hundred years of forest and land-use change in Massachusetts, USA. Journal of Biogeography 29, 1319-1335):
"Following methods described more fully in Cogbill et al. (2002), we used early surveyors' tree records from initial land divisions in each town to reconstruct the vegetation at the time of European settlement and before extensive Euro-American land use. All available original 17th - early 19th century survey records located at the state archives and individual town halls were examined and colloquial or common names of marker trees were noted... With few exceptions, only surveys that occurred within 80 years of town settlement were gathered in order to limit the potential influence of European land use on species composition."
geographic information systems
history
land use
landscape
vegetation dynamics
LTER controlled vocabulary
disturbance
land use
LTER core area
Harvard Forest
HFR
LTER
USA
HFR default
This dataset is released to the public under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 (No Rights Reserved). Please keep the dataset creators informed of any plans to use the dataset. Consultation with the original investigators is strongly encouraged. Publications and data products that make use of the dataset should include proper acknowledgement.
Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal
https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.html
CC0-1.0
https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/exist/apps/datasets/showData.html?id=hf087
Southern New England, Long Island NY. Coordinates based on WGS84 datum.
-73.8
-69.9
+42.9
+40.5
1640
1999
complete
Information Manager
Harvard Forest
324 North Main Street
Petersham
MA
01366
USA
(978) 724-3302
hf-im@lists.fas.harvard.edu
Harvard Forest
324 North Main Street
Petersham
MA
01366
USA
(978) 724-3302
(978) 724-3595
https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu
Tabular Data
The data file contains information collected from town offices, state archives, and state libraries. Witness trees are listed using 17th-19th century colloquial names. Note that towns with more than one type of data (see below) may have more than one row of data.
GIS Data
Data are provided as an ArcView point shapefile (town centroids) in latitude/longitude, NAD 1927 datum. The values in the table are the percent of total trees for each taxa (number of individuals in a taxa divided by the total number of trees).
Variables:
Code = Definition. Town = town name. N_trees = number of witness trees. Acer = % maples. Betula = % birches. Carya = % hickories. Casden = % chestnut (Castanea dentata). Cedar = % trees listed as “cedar”. Faggra = % beech (Fagus grandifolia). Fraxinus = % ash. Jugcin = % butternut (Juglans cinerea). Larlar = % tamarack (Larix laricina). Nyssly = % black gum (Nyssa sylvatica). Pinus = % pine. Populus = % poplar. Prunus = % cherry. Quercus = % oak. Sasalb = % sassafras (Sassafras albidum). Tilame = % basswood (Tilia americana). Tsucan = % hemlock (Tsuga canadensis). Ulmus = % elm. Other = % others. Picea = % spruce.
Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research
Harvard Forest
324 North Main Street
Petersham
MA
01366
USA
(978) 724-3302
(978) 724-3595
https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu
https://ror.org/059cpzx98
pointOfContact
The Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program examines ecological dynamics in the New England region resulting from natural disturbances, environmental change, and human impacts.
National Science Foundation LTER grants: DEB-8811764, DEB-9411975, DEB-0080592, DEB-0620443, DEB-1237491, DEB-1832210.
hf087-01-witness.csv
tabular data
hf087-01-witness.csv
4708214
4311004152fd131bac0b702780d48297
1
\r\n
column
,
https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/data/p08/hf087/hf087-01-witness.csv
state
state
state
town
town
town
location.county
county or other description of location
county or other description of location
lat
latitude of the town’s centroid (geographic projection, NAD27)
degree
0.0001
real
NA
missing value
long
longitude of the town’s centroid (geographic projection, NAD27)
degree
0.0001
real
NA
missing value
source
location of the data source
location of the data source
type
type of survey record. It has been shown that different types of surveys may have different proportions of species (see: Burgi, M., Russell, E.W.B., 2000. Evaluating accuracy of two types of early land survey records in the northeastern Unites States. Jounal of the Torrey Botanical Society 127, 94-98).
type of survey record
dates
dates of the data recorded
dates of the data recorded
surveyor
name of surveyor, only recorded for a few towns
name of surveyor
settlement
approximate year of European-American settlement
approximate year of European-American settlement
notes
any relevant notes
any relevant notes
ntrees
total number of individual trees recorded
number
1
whole
NA
missing value
tree
tree species
tree species
count
number recorded
number
1
whole
NA
missing value
43215
hf087-02-gis.zip
zip file contains an ArcView point shapefile for colonial witness trees (GIS)
hf087-02-gis.zip
652448
0eb2015857294915b5aaeee7b541f10f
zip
Esri shapefile
https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/data/p08/hf087/hf087-02-gis.zip
vector GIS
historical
regional
historical
https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/exist/apps/datasets/showData.html?id=hf088
https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/exist/apps/datasets/showData.html?id=hf014