Spatial distribution of forest landscape change in western New York from presettlement to the present Yi-Chen Wang, Barry J. Kronenfeld, and Chris P.S. Larsen Abstract: Changes in tree taxon composition and distribution in western New York over a 200 year time period ca. 1797– 1993 were examined by comparing the presettlement land survey with the US Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) survey. To ensure data quality, biases in presettlement bearing tree selection and FIA plot location were assessed. A 6 mile  6 mile grid of taxa abundance was then estimated using geostatistics. Overall, significant changes in taxon composition oc- curred, with the taxa most abundant in the presettlement land survey — beech (37.0%), sugar maple (21.0%), and eastern hemlock (8.3%) — being replaced by sugar maple (19.2%), ash (11.7%), and red maple (11.4%) in the FIA survey. Spa- tially resolved comparisons showed that the landscape changed from fairly spatially homogeneous to more heterogeneous; in the presettlement survey, the most abundant taxon in most of the 6 mile  6 mile grid cells was beech, while in the present survey, the most abundant taxon in most of the cells was one of several early successional taxa that each displayed a distinctly clustered geographic pattern of dominance. The clusters of dominance of the different early successional taxa may correspond to environmental factors. This study demonstrates the insights available through spatially resolved analy- ses of changes in the forest landscape between presettlement and present. Re ´sume ´: Les changements dans la distribution et la composition des taxons de la ve ´ge ´tation arborescente survenus au cours de la pe ´riode d’environ 200 ans, de 1797 a ` 1993, dans l’ouest de l’E ´ tat de New York ont e ´te ´e ´tudie ´s en comparant les releve ´s d’arpentage effectue ´s avant la colonisation et ceux du Programme national d’inventaire et d’analyse des fore ˆts des E ´ tats-Unis (FIA). Afin d’obtenir des donne ´es fiables, les biais de la se ´lection des arbres de direction avant la colonisa- tion et de la localisation des placettes e ´chantillons des releve ´s du Programme FIA ont e ´te ´e ´value ´s. L’abondance des taxons de chacune des cellules (6 milles  6 milles) d’une grille a ensuite e ´te ´e ´value ´e a ` l’aide de la ge ´ostatique. Dans l’ensemble, des changements importants sont survenus dans la composition des taxons: les taxons les plus abondants avant la colonisa- tion, soit le he ˆtre (37,0 %), l’e ´rable a ` sucre (21,0 %) et la pruche du Canada (8,3 %), ont e ´te ´ actuellement remplace ´s par l’e ´rable a ` sucre (19,2 %), le fre ˆne (11,7 %) et l’e ´rable rouge (11,4 %) dans les releve ´s du Programme FIA. Des comparai- sons spatiales ont montre ´ que le paysage autrefois d’apparence plus homoge `ne sur le plan spatial est devenu plus he ´te ´ro- ge `ne. Avant la colonisation, le he ˆtre e ´tait le taxon le plus abondant dans la plupart des cellules de 6 milles  6 milles. Aujourd’hui, le taxon le plus abondant du releve ´ de la plupart des cellules est l’un ou l’autre de la multitude des taxons du de ´but de succession et la distribution ge ´ographique de la dominance de chacun de ces taxons prend clairement la forme de grappes. Les grappes de dominance des diffe ´rents taxons du de ´but de succession seraient le reflet de l’effet des facteurs environnementaux. Cette e ´tude donne un aperc ¸u des possibilite ´s qu’offre l’analyse spatiale en montrant les changements survenus dans le paysage forestier depuis les de ´buts de la colonisation. [Traduit par la Re ´daction] Introduction Description and quantification of ecological patterns, both spatial and temporal, are key steps to understanding ecolog- ical processes and to disentangling the complexity of natural systems (Fortin and Dale 2005). Reconstructing the spatial extents of natural phenomena at different time periods to document how much landscape change has been induced by humans is a fundamental goal of ecologists (Certain et al. 2007). In many parts of the world, human settlement and its expanding demands have substantially modified the land- scape. Large-scale changes to forest composition and struc- ture directly influence floral and faunal habitats. For sustainable ecosystem management, investigation of forest change is needed to provide insights into the development processes that have given rise to the current forests. To investigate forest change, knowledge of historical for- est conditions that can act as baselines is desirable, particu- larly in regions lacking remnants of primary or old-growth forests. In North America, forest conditions before major Received 21 June 2008. Accepted 14 October 2008. Published on the NRC Research Press Web site at cjfr.nrc.ca on 11 December 2008. Reposted on the Web site with correction on 16 January 2009. Y.-C. Wang. 1 Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, 117570 Singapore. B.J. Kronenfeld. Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. C.P.S. Larsen. Department of Geography, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14261, USA. 1 Corresponding author (e-mail: geowyc@nus.edu.sg). 76 Can. J. For. Res. 39: 76–88 (2009) doi:10.1139/X08-161 Published by NRC Research Press