Changes in the forest landscape of the Charles C. Deam wilderness, southern Indiana, 1939-1990

We used aerial photographs from 1939, 1974, and 1990 to examine how land co ver has changed on the 5,286-ha Charles C. Deam Wilderness of Hoosier Natio nal Forest over this time span. Digital elevation models were used to exami ne changes in land-cover class (closed-canopy forest, open forest, agricult ure/old-field, clearcut, and pine plantation) within each land type (flat u plands, bottoms, mesic slopes, and dry slopes). In 1939 most of the Deam Wi lderness lands consisted of agriculture/old fields (33%) and open forest (2 5.6%), with only 41.4% in closed-canopy forest. By 1974 most of the wildern ess area had become closed-canopy forest (77.5%), and an even greater propo rtion was in that class in 1990 (86.3%). Since 1939 the forest of the Deam Wilderness has become much less fragmented with larger patch sizes, less to tal edge, and more total core area (area within a patch > 50 m from the edg e). In 1939 land cover varied by land type: flat uplands and bottoms had th e highest proportion of agriculture and old-fields (42.4% and 63.3%, respec tively), and dry and mesic slopes had the highest proportion of open forest s (30.2% and 28.3%, respectively). By 1974 closed-canopy forest was the dom inant land cover on all land types.