25 ms·

Yeah, I specifically ended the timeline around 1650 or so. Basically once European diseases showed up there has been no stable state, just a bunch of 50yr stat

Yeah, I specifically ended the timeline around 1650 or so. Basically once European diseases showed up there has been no stable state, just a bunch of 50yr states. Though what we do know is that the impenetrable forested thickets of the late 1600s and early 1700s are basically the same as what we have now (with less non-native species) to grow up after you cut down all the multi-hundred year old trees for lumber. The fact that we routinely clear cut any given parcel and the average parcel of land has not burnt in hundreds of years gives us very different forests that what would have grown up on un-managed land in say the year 1500 or would have grown up in the immediate absence of natives circa 1630.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
Fair enough, so: glaciers -> tundra -> grasslands -> forests managed by native peoples -> unmanaged forests -> decimated forests due to settler activities -> depopulation and deindustrialization -> un-managed forests
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  More or less but the level of resolution there doesn't really capture the rapid changes that happened after the natives were kicked out. Settlers would cut some lands while simultaneously ignoring others. Some areas that were historically grasslands thanks to continued native settlement reverted to forests. Some forests were clear cut for farm and pasture. But then they turned around and selectively logged some of the newly grown up forests, and repeated grazing/farming altered the substrates so when pastures were left and grown over in the 1850s different stuff grew back. And remember, basically any time you get a mature forest prior to 1980 or so someone comes along and logs it within a couple decades. And all of this is happening in a patchwork manner and the environment is inter-connected so (for example) decimating a bird species in most of its range will effect the plants it caries ability to show up on land left to grow over in its range. Then you have stuff like the chestnut blight, etc, etc. It's really hard to paint accurately with a broad brush after Europeans showed up.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

Fair enough, so: glaciers -> tundra -> grasslands -> forests managed by native peoples -> unmanaged forests -> decimated forests due to settler activities -> depopulation and deindustrialization -> un-managed forests

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
More or less but the level of resolution there doesn't really capture the rapid changes that happened after the natives were kicked out. Settlers would cut some lands while simultaneously ignoring others. Some areas that were historically grasslands thanks to continued native settlement reverted to forests. Some forests were clear cut for farm and pasture. But then they turned around and selectively logged some of the newly grown up forests, and repeated grazing/farming altered the substrates so when pastures were left and grown over in the 1850s different stuff grew back. And remember, basically any time you get a mature forest prior to 1980 or so someone comes along and logs it within a couple decades. And all of this is happening in a patchwork manner and the environment is inter-connected so (for example) decimating a bird species in most of its range will effect the plants it caries ability to show up on land left to grow over in its range. Then you have stuff like the chestnut blight, etc, etc. It's really hard to paint accurately with a broad brush after Europeans showed up.