Winter view from Mt Garfield of fir waves on North Twin Mountain, White Mountains, New Hampshire.

A fir wave is a set of alternating bands of fir trees in sequential stages of development, observed in forests on exposed mountain slopes in several areas, including northeastern North America and Japan. Fir waves develop by wave-regeneration following wind disturbance, and is one of various types of patterned vegetation. Image File history File linksMetadata Fir_waves. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Fir_waves. ... The Twin Mountains are a pair of mountains located in Franconia, New Hampshire. ... This article is about the White Mountains of New Hampshire. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... FIR may stand for: finite impulse response (a property of some digital filters) far infrared, i. ... The coniferous Coast Redwood, the tallest tree species on earth. ... Eucalyptus Forest at Swifts Creek in East Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. ... Mount McKinley (Denali) in Alaska (USA) has the highest visible base-to-summit elevation on Earth (approximately 5400 metres). ... World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America. ... Wind is the roughly horizontal movement of air (as opposed to an air current) caused by uneven heating of the Earths surface. ... In ecology, a disturbance is a temporary change in average environmental conditions that causes a pronounced change in ecosystem structure that lasts longer than the change in the environment. ... Aerial view of Tiger bush in Niger. ...

How fir waves form

Hasha Fir waves from by the ecological process of wave-regeneration. When a tree falls, a gap in the canopy is formed. This exposes trees at the leeward edge of the gap to greater wind. These trees are thus more likely to die from damage and desiccation than windward trees. These leeward trees eventually die, gradually expanding the gap downwind. At the same time, young trees start to grow in the wind shadow in the windward portion of the gap, protected from the high winds by the surviving trees. The combination of dying trees at the leeward edge and regenerating trees at the windward edge results in the propagation of the fir waves in the direction of the predominant prevailing wind. The period of the waves is variable, typically about 60 years in Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea). Ernst Haeckel coined the term oekologie in 1866. ... In ecology, a gap or canopy gap is an opening in the forest canopy structure devoid of large trees. ... Leeward is the side of a boat away from the direction where the wind is coming (i. ... Windward is the side of a boat into which the wind is blowing. ... Binomial name Abies balsamea (L.) Mill. ...

References and further reading

• Wave-Regeneration in High Elevation Subalpine Fir Forests, from Forest and Landscape Ecology course material at Michigan Tech.
• Fir waves and life history evolution in the Adirondacks, ecological research by J. Silvertown and M. Dodd.
• Fir Waves: Regeneration in New England Conifer Forests, from Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology.
• Sprugel, D. G. 1976. Dynamic structure of wave-regenerated Abies balsamea forests in the north-eastern United States. Journal of Ecology 64: 889-911.
• Shibuya, M., Hagai, N., Sasaji, T., Kikuchi, S., Haruki, M., Noda, M., Takahashi, K., and Matsuda, K. 2004. Stand and self-thinning dynamics in natural Abies stands in northern Hokkaido, Japan. Ecological Research 19:301. Article abstract

See also

Temperate coniferous forests Pine forests are an example of a temperate coniferous forests Temperate coniferous forests are a terrestrial biome found in temperate regions of the world with warm summers and cool winters and adequate rainfall to sustain a forest. ...