Old Growth Forest Research Paper

Old growth forests are rare to come by, especially in the United States. The Camillus Unique Forest Area, located in northeastern New York, has many characteristics of an old growth forest. It is unclear how old the forest actually is, as the tree species that reside there have a life span of 100-200 years. This could mean that the forest is thousands of years old, with hundreds of generations of these species, or only a few hundred years old, with the first generation just reaching maturity. Either way the forest has many traits of an old growth forest.
The trees throughout Camillus were of varying ages. Within this uneven age condition, there were dominantly older-age trees. There was uniform variability throughout. The canopy was very dense and there was a wall of folage. Some large, older trees were dead standing, others had fallen over. In areas where large trees had fallen, there were lots of younger trees competing for light. This is called the gap phase. As far as composition goes, the dominant tree species in the forest was sugar maple. There were also a fair amount of American beech trees, but the forest was surprisingly lacking of yellow birch and eastern hemlock. This could be attributed to the lack

Both forests had hummocks and hollows to some degree. This is likely due to the older trees which have fallen down and decomposed into the soil. This also leads to the gap phase, which gives new, young species a chance to grow. Both forests had the same tree species of sugar maple and American beech, however, Heiberg has a much wider variety of tree species. This is due to the seed source available in Heiberg versus Camillus. The relative stand densities were also comparable, having a thick canopy for the most part and a wall of folage. Both forests also have a similar land use history, being formally used for agriculture, although it is unclear how much and how long the Camillus forest was