Earth Sciences Commons^™

Application Of A New Tree-Ring Based Drought Reconstruction Method At Multiple Forest Sites Across Indiana, U.S.A., Kayla Mechelle Pendergrass

Master's Theses

This thesis research used techniques of dendrochronology to investigate the efficacy of using multiple co-occurring species (MCOS) in a climate reconstruction model compared to a single species (SS) in four old-growth forests in Indiana: Pioneer Mothers Memorial Forest (PM), Donaldson Woods (DW), Hoot Woods (HW), and Lilly Dickey Woods (LD). The objectives of this study were to [1] evaluate the climate response of all chronologies (n = 19; 7 species) to determine the most appropriate climate variable for reconstruction and [2] determine if the MCOS model outperforms the SS model at each individual study site. Model comparison was conducted …