On the Origin of the Field Plants of the Northeastern United States

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Abstract
A variety of evidence suggests that the field plants native to eastern North America occurred primarily in persistent open habitats rather than in temporary forest openings in the original landscape. The contrast between the native plants of old fields and the plants of forest openings is fundamentally important to interpretation of life history evolution. Plants of forest openings (e.g., Prunus pensylvanica) have good colonizing ability; in contrast, most native field plants have evolved in marginal habitats that are permanently open on the time scale of centuries or millenia. Under such permanently open conditions, colonizing ability from seeds is not at a premium. If native field plants are characteristic of persistent marginal habitats rather than temporary forest openings, and if the many agricultural weeds are recognized as plants introduced from Eurasia, then the number of plant species that have evolved as specialized colonizers of forest openings in the northeastern USA is small (P. pensylvanica and one or 2 others). Even the few true pioneer plants of the Northeast have undergone much of their evolution in open marginal habitats.