A 13,000-year history of vegetation and fire in a rare inland pine barrens: The Albany Pine Bush (Albany County, New York, USA)

Two radiocarbon-dated pollen and charcoal records from cores collected at Stump Pond and a wetland in suburban Albany County, New York, provide new insights into the environmental history of a unique inland pine barrens that is currently surrounded and threatened by urban development: the Albany Pine Bush (APB). The Stump Pond core shows that the pond formed roughly 13,000 years ago with the recession of glacial Lake Albany. From ca. 13,000 to 11,000 years ago spruce (Picea) and other boreal forest taxa were more common in the region than they are today, but both cores show that pine-oak (Pinus-Quercus) assemblages similar to those of today's APB have been predominant components of the local forests for the last ca. 11,000 years. Abundant charcoal in both cores demonstrates that fire activity was a frequent occurrence in the APB throughout its history, particularly for the last ca. 6400 years. Water tables rose in response to increasingly humid hydroclimates, leading to the establishment of the wetland site ca. 6400 years ago and a greater abundance of ferns and mosses there during the last millennium. More recently, expanding urbanization and its associated impacts demonstrate that human activity has become the primary driver of change in the APB ecosystem.