Postfire changes in forest carbon storage over a 300‐year chronosequence of<i>Pinus contorta</i>‐dominated forests

Kashian, Daniel M.; Romme, William H.; Tinker, Daniel B.; Turner, Monica G.; Ryan, Michael G.

doi:10.1890/11-1454.1

Cited by 108 publications

(129 citation statements)

References 109 publications

(205 reference statements)

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“…In the case of stand-replacing wildfires this requires information spanning at least several centuries, and at Chickaree Lake this required several millennia, well beyond the length of both observational and tree-ring records. Many studies have reported ecosystem impacts or recovery times from individual fire events and then extrapolated to infer scenarios that would lead to C gain or loss (Dunnette et al, 2014;Kashian et al, 2013;Mack et al, 2011;Smithwick et al, 2009). In contrast, our paleo-informed scenario highlights the importance of variability in fire timing and severity over multiple fire events for carbon cycling dynamics, independent of complete shifts in a fire regime.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…DayCent submodels associated with tree physiological parameters, site characteristics, soil parameters, and disturbance events were modified using available site-specific observations (Dunnette et al, 2014;Sibold et al, 2007), values from the literature (Kashian et al, 2013;Turner et al, 2004), and publically available climate and soil databases. Climate data required for DayCent include daily minimum and maximum temperature and precipitation, which were obtained for a 30-year period from DAYMET (Thornton, 2012).…”

Section: Model Parameterizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lower-severity/extra-local fires from the paleo record were simulated by 95 % tree mortality with no associated soil-erosion event; we refer to these as high-severity fires without erosion. After parameterization, we evaluated modern modeled aboveground NPP, soil C, total ecosystem carbon, and disturbance C losses against observations of similar-aged lodgepole pine stands in the Central Rockies ecoregion (Hansen et al, 2015;Kashian et al, 2013;Turner et al, 2004).…”

Section: Model Parameterizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fire-regime variability impacts forest carbon dynamics for centuries to millennia

2017

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Abstract. Wildfire is a dominant disturbance agent in forest ecosystems, shaping important biogeochemical processes including net carbon (C) balance. Long-term monitoring and chronosequence studies highlight a resilience of biogeochemical properties to large, stand-replacing, high-severity fire events. In contrast, the consequences of repeated fires or temporal variability in a fire regime (e.g., the characteristic timing or severity of fire) are largely unknown, yet theory suggests that such variability could strongly influence forest C trajectories (i.e., future states or directions) for millennia. Here we combine a 4500-year paleoecological record of fire activity with ecosystem modeling to investigate how fire-regime variability impacts soil C and net ecosystem carbon balance. We found that C trajectories in a paleo-informed scenario differed significantly from an equilibrium scenario (with a constant fire return interval), largely due to variability in the timing and severity of past fires. Paleo-informed scenarios contained multi-century periods of positive and negative net ecosystem C balance, with magnitudes significantly larger than observed under the equilibrium scenario. Further, this variability created legacies in soil C trajectories that lasted for millennia. Our results imply that fire-regime variability is a major driver of C trajectories in stand-replacing fire regimes. Predicting carbon balance in these systems, therefore, will depend strongly on the ability of ecosystem models to represent a realistic range of fire-regime variability over the past several centuries to millennia.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Model Parameterizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Model Parameterizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fire-regime variability impacts forest carbon dynamics for centuries to millennia

2017

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“…Considering the mean annual growth response, both residual overstory and understory trees species showed variable growth responses [42,55,67] and in some instances reached up to 400% from the pre-MPB conditions [67]. Generally, MPB attacks older trees (>60 years of age) and if we consider the growth pattern of pine trees, it reveals that peak productivity can be achieved 24-60 years after stand development and declines thereafter to 16%-48% of maximum values by the age of 200-350 years [68][69][70]. Therefore, disturbance caused by MPB "resets" the pine development to an earlier and possibly more productive stage and killed pine volume can be offset by the increased growth [42,55,67,68].…”

Section: Growth Response Of Residual Live Treesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aftermath of Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak in British Columbia: Stand Dynamics, Management Response and Ecosystem Resilience

Dhar

Parrott

Hawkins

2016

Forests

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Abstract:The mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) (MPB) has infested and killed millions of hectares of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia Engelm) forests in British Columbia, Canada, over the past decade. It is now spreading out of its native range into the Canadian boreal forest, with unknown social, economic and ecological consequences. This review explores the ramifications of the MPB epidemic with respect to mid-term timber supply, forest growth, structure and composition, vegetation diversity, forest fire, climate change, and ecosystem resilience. Research confirms that, in British Columbia, all of these variables are more significantly impacted when salvage logging is used as management response to the outbreak. We conclude that appropriate management in response to MPB is essential to ensuring ecologically resilient future forests and reliable mid-term timber supplies for affected human communities. We highlight knowledge gaps and avenues for research to advance our understanding in support of sustainable post-disturbance forest management policies in British Columbia and elsewhere.

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“…Models suggest this biome will experience rapid temperature increases during the 21st century, with a potential 30-500% increase in burn rates (6)(7)(8)(9). Both fire size and the frequency of large fire years are expected to increase (8,10,11), with a cascading effect on ecosystem dynamics (12)(13)(14)(15)(16) and carbon storage (17)(18)(19)(20)(21).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Resistance of the boreal forest to high burn rates

Héon

Arseneault

Parisien

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

144

153

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Boreal ecosystems and their large carbon stocks are strongly shaped by extensive wildfires. Coupling climate projections with records of area burned during the last 3 decades across the North American boreal zone suggests that area burned will increase by 30-500% by the end of the 21st century, with a cascading effect on ecosystem dynamics and on the boreal carbon balance. Fire size and the frequency of large-fire years are both expected to increase. However, how fire size and time since previous fire will influence future burn rates is poorly understood, mostly because of incomplete records of past fire overlaps. Here, we reconstruct the length of overlapping fires along a 190-km-long transect during the last 200 y in one of the most fire-prone boreal regions of North America to document how fire size and time since previous fire will influence future fire recurrence. We provide direct field evidence that extreme burn rates can be sustained by a few occasional droughts triggering immense fires. However, we also show that the most fire-prone areas of the North American boreal forest are resistant to high burn rates because of overabundant young forest stands, thereby creating a fuel-mediated negative feedback on fire activity. These findings will help refine projections of fire effect on boreal ecosystems and their large carbon stocks.climate change | fire-free intervals | fuel feedback | probability of burning | tree ring dating

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Postfire changes in forest carbon storage over a 300‐year chronosequence ofPinus contorta‐dominated forests

Cited by 108 publications

References 109 publications

Fire-regime variability impacts forest carbon dynamics for centuries to millennia

Fire-regime variability impacts forest carbon dynamics for centuries to millennia

Aftermath of Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak in British Columbia: Stand Dynamics, Management Response and Ecosystem Resilience

Resistance of the boreal forest to high burn rates

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