# Saladyga fire data from Wall Fork, Cumberland Mountains - IMPD USWF-002
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#                World Data Service for Paleoclimatology, Boulder 
#                                  and 
#                     NOAA Paleoclimatology Program 
#             National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)
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# Template Version 4.0
# Encoding: UTF-8
# NOTE: Please cite original publication, NOAA Landing Page URL, dataset and publication DOIs (where available), and date accessed when using downloaded data. If there is no publication information, please cite investigator, study title, NOAA Landing Page URL, and date accessed. 
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# Description/Documentation lines begin with #
# Data lines have no #
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# NOAA_Landing_Page: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/paleo-search/study/36996
#   Landing_Page_Description: NOAA Landing Page of this file's parent study, which includes all study metadata.
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# Study_Level_JSON_Metadata: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/metadata/published/paleo/json/noaa-fire-36996.json
#   Study_Level_JSON_Description: JSON metadata of this file's parent study, which includes all study metadata.
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# Data_Type: Fire History
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# Dataset_DOI:
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# Science_Keywords: 
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# Resource_Links
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# Data_Download_Resource: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/uswf-002.fhx
#   Data_Download_Description: Data - Fire History Exchange File (FHX); Wall Fork Fire Scar Data 
# 
# Data_Download_Resource: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/uswf-002-noaa.txt
#   Data_Download_Description: Metadata - NOAA Template File; Wall Fork Fire Scar Metadata
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# Contribution_Date
#   Date: 2022-09-06
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# File_Last_Modified_Date
#   Date: 2022-09-06
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# Title
#   Study_Name: Saladyga fire data from Wall Fork, Cumberland Mountains - IMPD USWF-002
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# Investigators
#   Investigators: Saladyga, Thomas(https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6304-4428); Palmquist, Kyle A.(https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7665-4105); Bacon, Cassie M.
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# Description_Notes_and_Keywords
#   Description: 
# Sample Storage Location: Environmental Geography Lab, Concord University, Athens, West Virginia
# Dating Method: Crossdated
# Related ITRDB_Chronology: Not Applicable
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# Fire scar data from this site are available in FHX2 format at:
#   https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/uswf-002.fhx
# along with associated metadata at:
#   https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/uswf-002-noaa.txt
# 
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# Funding_Agency 
#   Funding_Agency_Name:
#   Grant:
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# Publication 
#   Authors: Saladyga, Thomas; Palmquist, Kyle A.; Bacon, Cassie M.
#   Published_Date_or_Year: 2022
#   Published_Title: Fire history and vegetation data reveal ecological benefits of recent mixed-severity fires in the Cumberland Mountains, West Virginia, USA
#   Journal_Name: Fire Ecology
#   Volume: 18
#   Edition: 
#   Issue: 
#   Pages: 
#   Report_Number: 
#   DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-022-00143-6
#   Publication_Place: 
#   Publisher: 
#   ISBN: 
#   Online_Resource: 
#   Other_Reference_Details: Article number: 19 (2022)
#   Full_Citation: 
#   Abstract: 
# Background
# Without periodic fire, fire-adapted plant communities across the Central Hardwood Forest Region (CHF) in the USA have undergone significant changes in forest structure and species composition, most notably a decrease in oak regeneration and herbaceous diversity and an increase in shade-tolerant, fire-sensitive tree species. In this study, we conducted a comparative analysis of two mixed pine-oak (Pinus-Quercus) forests with different land management histories in the Cumberland Mountains of southern West Virginia where fire ecology and fire effects are understudied. We reconstructed the fire history of both sites from fire-scarred shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata Mill.) and pitch pine (Pinus rigida Mill.) trees to describe variation in the fire regimes over time. We also made plant community measurements that spatially coincided with fire-scarred pines to assess present-day plant community structure in relation to recent fire history.
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# Results
# Before 1970, fires at Hite Fork and Wall Fork occurred frequently and almost exclusively in the dormant season, every 7�8 years on average. The fire regimes diverged in the Post-Industrial era (1970�2020), during which there was a single fire at Wall Fork, while six major fires, scarring more than 40% of sampled trees, occurred between 1985 and 2017 at Hite Fork. Four of these dormant-season fires correspond to late fall incendiary fires in the observational record. These differences in recent fire history had large effects on plant community structure. Recent mixed-severity fires at Hite Fork likely caused mortality of pole-sized trees and opened the canopy, creating conditions favorable for pine recruitment and resulted in significantly higher species richness in the herbaceous layer compared to Wall Fork, which exhibited the effects of mesophication.
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# Conclusions
# Our results suggest that frequent mixed-severity fire in pine-oak forests of the Cumberland Mountains can meet management objectives by reducing mesophytic tree abundance, increasing herbaceous diversity and pine recruitment, and generally promoting forest heterogeneity.
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# Site_Information
#   Site_Name: Wall Fork - IMPD USWF-002
#   Location: North America>United States Of America>West Virginia
#   Northernmost_Latitude: 38.25
#   Southernmost_Latitude: 38.25
#   Easternmost_Longitude: -81.63
#   Westernmost_Longitude: -81.63
#   Elevation_m: 376
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# Data_Collection
#   Collection_Name: USWF-002
#   First_Year: 1745
#   Last_Year: 2021
#   Time_Unit: CE
#   Core_Length_m: 
#   Parameter_Keywords: fire scar dates
#   Notes: 
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# Species 
#   Species_Name: Pinus echinata Mill.
#   Common_Name: shortleaf pine
#   Tree_Species_Code: PIEC
#   Tree_Species_Download_Resource: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/templates/tree-species-code.csv
#   Tree_Species_Download_Description: List of accepted tree species names and codes.
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# Species 
#   Species_Name: Pinus rigida Mill.
#   Common_Name: pitch pine
#   Tree_Species_Code: PIRI
#   Tree_Species_Download_Resource: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/templates/tree-species-code.csv
#   Tree_Species_Download_Description: List of accepted tree species names and codes.
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# Chronology Information: 
# Chronology:
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# Variables
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# PaST_Thesaurus_Download_Resource: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/PaST-thesaurus/SKOS/past-thesaurus-v1.0.rdf
#   PaST_Thesaurus_Download_Description: Paleoenvironmental Standard Terms (PaST) Thesaurus terms, definitions, and relationships in SKOS format.
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#   Short_name	what,material,error,units,seasonality,data_type,detail,method,data_format,additional_information
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## age_ce	age,,,year Common Era,,FIRE HISTORY;TREE RING,,,N,
## tree_events	tree demographic and injury and fire event code,wood,,,,FIRE HISTORY;TREE RING,,,C,FHX2 data format; refer to IMPD documentation for description of codes
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# Data:
# To access data, use Data_Download_Resource links above.