Spatial statistics and land survey records identify hot spots in fire-dependent forest communities near indigenous settlement in southwestern New York circa 1810

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Studies have analyzed land survey records of circa 17th-19th centuries to reveal how past Indigenous cultural burning promoted fire-tolerant taxa such as oak ( Quercus spp.) and pine ( Pinus spp.) in eastern US forests. In this study, we applied novel statistical methods to land survey records of circa 1810 to investigate the geographic distribution of pyrophilic vegetation and burned areas in a portion of western New York State, USA (2435 km 2 ), a region historically dominated by northern hardwood forests. Using species distribution models and spatial statistics (i.e., Getis-Ord Gi*), we compared potential distributions of fire-dependent tree taxa with their actual distributions and relative abundances. Results suggested that while mesic vegetation dominated the study area, statistically significant “hot spots” ( p < 0.05) in pyrophilic tree abundance occurred along the Allegany Reservation, an Indigenous territory. Geographic patterns in hot spots and actual taxon distributions differed from potential suitability predicted by MaxEnt models incorporating environmental predictors alone. Moreover, land surveyors recorded burned areas amidst pyrophilic vegetation and adjacent to Indigenous territory totaling approximately 1.2% of the study area. We demonstrated a novel approach to understanding cultural burning and its effects upon past vegetation that does not rely upon exhaustive representations of past settlement nor upon proxy measures of where Indigenous land use likely occurred. Results contributed to the increasing body of work showing that cultural burning played an ecological role in promoting pyrophilic vegetation and mast trees in northern forests, counteracting the influence of a cool-moist climate.