Interpolated fire-adapted tree abundance in pre-settlement forests of Minnesota

Historic bearing-tree information was used to create an interpolated data surface of the percentage of fire-adapted trees across much of the state of Minnesota. Species and genera were classified as either pyrophilic (fire loving) or pyrophobic (fire avoiding). Each record, comprised of one tree, was assigned a pyrophilic score of either 0 or 100%. An 805 square meter grid was overlaid onto the point data and mean pyrophilic percentages were calculated from all bearing trees within each cell. Ordinary kriging was used to create the interpolated surface. This data publication includes the shapefile containing interpolated mean percent pyrophilic values summarized by 10% classes as polygons for both the Midwestern Broadleaf Forest Province and Laurentian Mixed Forest Province in Minnesota.
We used the existing Minnesota Bearing Tree Database to create a new data layer to display the distribution of fire-adapted trees on the pre-settlement landscape.
For more information about this study and these data, see Thomas-Van Gundy and Nowacki (2016).