Climate Envelopes Do Not Reflect Tree Dynamics after Euro-American Settlement in Eastern North America

Tree distributions and densities have been dynamic since Euro-American settlement in North America. Historically dominant fire-tolerant tree species have decreased, and fire-sensitive, successional species have increased, and tree species have expended westward since the 1800s into the central Great Plains grasslands. Divergent compositional trajectories and the westward expansion of tree species may be explained by climate change. To establish patterns expected by climate change, I predicted climate envelopes in eastern North America during 7 intervals, from the 1500s to 1961–1990, of 16 wide-ranging fire-tolerant and fire-sensitive species. The climate envelopes demonstrated that suitable climate area has remained relatively stable for all species: compared with the 1500s, areal extents during the 1900s increased 104% for fire-sensitive species and 106% for fire-tolerant species. Additionally, a pattern of northeastern shifts (i.e., following the North American land mass) resulted from climate change. Climate envelopes demonstrated northeastern shifts with slight expansion for all species, which did not accord with realized dynamics of westward tree expansion or increases in fire-sensitive species. In accordance with other lines of evidence, land use disturbance change, incorporating fire exclusion, likely has caused the divergent trajectories of fire-tolerant and fire-sensitive species and westward expansion into the Great Plains grasslands.