Impact of Ice-Storms and Subsequent Salvage Logging on the Productivity of Cunninghamia lanceolata (Chinese Fir) Forests

Abstract

The impacts of ice-storms on forests have received growing attention in recent years. Although there is a wide agreement that ice-storms significantly affect forest structure and functions, how frequent ice-storms and subsequent salvage logging impact productivity of subtropical coniferous forests in the future still remains poorly understood. In this study, we used the Ecosystem Demography model, Version 2.2 (ED-2.2), to project the impact of salvage logging of ice-storm-damaged trees on the productivity of Cunninghamia lanceolata-dominated coniferous forest and C. lanceolata-dominated mixed coniferous and broadleaved forests. The results show that forest productivity recovery is delayed in coniferous forests when there is no shade-tolerant broadleaved species invasion after ice-storms, and C. lanceolata could continue to dominate the canopy in the mixed coniferous and broadleaved forests under high-frequency ice-storms and subsequent salvage logging. The resistance and resilience of the mixed coniferous and broadleaved forests to high-frequency ice-storms and subsequent salvage logging were stronger compared to coniferous forests. Although conifers could continue to dominate the canopy under shade-tolerant broadleaved species invasion, we could not rule out the possibility of a future forest community dominated by shade-tolerant broadleaf trees because there were few coniferous saplings and shade-tolerant broadleaf species dominated the understory. Our results highlight that post-disaster forest management should be continued after high-frequency ice-storms and subsequent salvage logging in C. lanceolata forests to prevent possible shade-tolerant, late successional broadleaf trees from dominating the canopy in the future.

Simulating the Impacts of Drought and Warming in Summer and Autumn on the Productivity of Subtropical Coniferous Forests

“…ED-2.2 is a collaborative open-source model, and its software and further development are publicly available (https://github.com/EDmodel/ED2) (accessed on 16 March 2022) [48]. Recently, the Ecosystem Demography model and its derivatives as well as coupled with other models have been calibrated, validated, and applied across the temperate forests [61][62][63][64], subtropical forests [65], and tropical forests [42,[66][67][68][69].…”

“…In order to localize the model, we corrected some ecophysiological and allometric parameters of the model (Table 2). In the ED-2.2 model, specific leaf area (SLA) is a more sensitive parameter for plant functionality [72,73], and we modified the SLA of PFT2, PFT4, and PFT7 to replace the default parameters of the model according to the existing studies from [74] and Zhu et al (2022) [65], in which the parameters used are from the TRY global plant functional trait databases [75,76]. According to the existing research [65], the allometric growth equation of PFT7 was modified.…”

“…In the ED-2.2 model, specific leaf area (SLA) is a more sensitive parameter for plant functionality [72,73], and we modified the SLA of PFT2, PFT4, and PFT7 to replace the default parameters of the model according to the existing studies from [74] and Zhu et al (2022) [65], in which the parameters used are from the TRY global plant functional trait databases [75,76]. According to the existing research [65], the allometric growth equation of PFT7 was modified. We also modified the DBH-height allometric equation (i.e., a modified Weibull function, Equation ( 1)) of PFT2 and PFT4 in the ED-2.2 model [48] by using forest inventory data (Table 1):…”

“…The goodness of fit for the DBH-height allometric equation after model calibration was better than the default value in ED-2.2 (Table 3), indicating that the ED-2.2 model can reliably simulate tree height and related tree biomass (e.g., leaf, sapwood, heartwood, bark, and root). Although ED-2.2 models are commonly used in tropical forests such as the Amazon rainforest [49,82], they are rarely used to model the dynamics and response of subtropical coniferous forests to disturbances in southern China [65]. Consequently, we refitted the DBH-height allometric equation based on forest inventory data and corrected the sensitive physiological and ecological parameter to localize the parameter in ED-2.2 as much as possible (i.e., SLA).…”

Productivity analysis and costs of wheel cable skidder during salvage logging in European beech stand

“…Different abiotic and biotic disturbances are expected to become more common in the future due to a warming climate. In particular, ice storms could trigger physical damage to forests and, therefore, significantly affect forest structures and functions (Carbaugh and Hensle, 2005;Kramer et al, 2014;Zhu et al, 2022). In detail, wet snow or ice causes bending or breakage of branches and tree tops, and this occurs when the weight of frozen precipitation exceeds the buckling load of the portion of the tree bearing the load (Stoilov et al, 2021;Thorn et al, 2017).…”