baumzaehlen - Primeval Forests & Their Trees

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA

Yellowstone National Park ( 8983 km ² ) is famous for its geothermic features and bison herds, but here we are interested in its large forested wildernesses.

Tree species diversity is low and identification easy. Excluding areas at high altitudes, Pinus contorta var. latifolia (lodgepole pine) dominates everywhere. These forests have been formed after wildfires. P. contorta , with its thin bark, is not well-adapted to survive fire but the serotinous (opened by heat) cones effect rapid regeneration in burned areas, allowing it to maintain its dominance ¹ . The theoretical climax species on most of the park would be Abies lasiocarpa (subalpine fir) ² , but both this and Picea engelmannii (Engelmann spruce) seem to invade forests extremely slowly. In some very dry and infertile sites P. contorta is even the theoretical climax species ³ . Annual precipitation is 280-1800 mm ² and elevation 1610-3462 m. Average annual temperature at 2000 m is approx. 2–3°C.

Off-trail hiking is generally easy. Camping is allowed only on designated sites.

References:

1 Agee, J. K. (1998): Fire and pine ecosystems. In Richardson, D. M. (ed.): Ecology and Biogeography of Pinus. Cambridge.

2 Despain, D. G. (1990): Yellowstone Vegetation. Roberts Rinehart.

3 Despain, D. G. (1983): Nonpyrogenous climax lodgepole pine communities in Yellowstone National Park. Ecology , 64 , 231–4.

Official site:

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