Strong Disturbance Impact of Tropical Cyclone Lionrock (2016) on Korean Pine-Broadleaved Forest in the Middle Sikhote-Alin Mountain Range, Russian Far East

Abstract

Tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons) cause large-scale disturbances in forest ecosystems all over the world. In the summer of 2016, a strong tropical cyclone named Lionrock created windthrow patches in the area of more than 400 km 2 on the forested eastern slopes of the Sikhote-Alin Range, in the Russian Far East. Such large-scale forest destruction by wind had never been recorded in the area prior to this event. We examined the tropical cyclone impact upon the forest composition, structure and tree mortality rates on two study sites (1 ha and 0.5 ha in size)-a contiguous windthrow patch site, and a site with partial canopy damage. Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis Siebold and Zucc.), Manchurian fir (Abies nephrolepis Trautv.) and Dahurian larch (Larix cajanderi Mayr.) were the primary tree species represented in the affected forest communities. Combined with the partial canopy damage, 7.7% of trees were blown down by the disturbance event. We determined that this one event mortality rate nearly equaled the average mortality rate for a ten year period for these forests (8.5 ± 4.0%) under normal conditions (no large-scale disturbances). Within a contiguous windthrow patch, tree mortality was determined to be 52.6%, which is significantly higher than the cumulative tree loss for the previous 50 years (42.4%). A substantial portion of thinner-stemmed trees (DBH (diameter measured at breast height) < 30 cm) were wind snapped, and those with larger diameters (DBH > 60 cm) were uprooted. Our results indicate that the probability of tree loss due to catastrophic wind loads increases as a result of the decrease in local density. We believe that tree loss estimates should include the impacts within contiguous patches of windthrows, as well as the patches with only partial tree canopy damage. Strong wind impact forecasting is possible with accounting for species composition within the stand sites and their spatial structure.

Tree canopy accession strategy changes along the latitudinal gradient of temperate Northeast Asia

“…It is predicted that disturbances connected with TCs will move northward (Kossin et al., 2014; Sharmila & Walsh, 2018), and in general, it is proposed that TCs will become stronger, larger and more unpredictably destructive under global warming (Sun et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2020). Recent unprecedently strong TC forest disturbances were observed in the north of our study area (Vozmishcheva et al, 2019). These changes of climatic systems, specifically the poleward migration and increasing intensity of TCs, might cause the shift of GTs towards the north along the latitudinal gradient (Altman et al., 2018).…”

Local neural-network-weighted models for occurrence and number of down wood in natural forest ecosystem

“…7 ), which will vary according to different regions, which also shows the existence of non-stationarity in the spatial model 35 . In the E and W orientations, the ODW is high and the NDW is large 64 . In the N, NE and NW orientations, the ODW is high, but NDW not large.…”

“…This indicates the formation of the secondary forest. Not only that, but it also leads to the loss of a lot of valuable timber in this area 64 . Therefore, it shows the economic value to the region (not rotten wood), and buck and forest investigate the environmental factors by using the data of the ODW (binary) 19 , 20 and the NDW (count) 21 to establish the GL, GWR, and GNNWR models, respectively.…”

Assessment of the mixed coniferousbroadleaved forest canopy disturbance induced by typhoon Maysak (2020) using drone-borne images near Vladivostok, Russia

“…), we observed massive windblows and windthrows (our un pub li shed data, spring 2021). The fact that ty phoons become a sig nificant problem for the south of the Rus sian Far East is also evidenced by disturbances in southwest Sakhalin due to the tro pical cyclone in 2015 (Korz nikov et al 2022) and in Si kho te-Alin Nature Reserve due to typhoon Lionrock in 2016 (Vozmishcheva et al 2019), when 9 % of the forests turned into continuous windblows.…”