B51K-07:
Emergent Patterns of Forest Biomass Production from Across and within a Micro-Network
Friday, 19 December 2014: 9:30 AM
Neil Pederson1, Dario Martin Benito2, Daniel A Bishop1, Andria Dawson3, Michael Dietze4, Daniel Druckenbrod5, Alex Dye6, Ana Camila Gonzalez7, Amy E Hessl6, Javier Martin Fernandez1, Jason S McLachlan8, Christopher J Paciorek9, Benjamin Poulter10 and John W Williams11, (1)Lamont -Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY, United States, (2)ETH Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, (3)University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States, (4)Boston University, Boston, MA, United States, (5)Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ, United States, (6)West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, United States, (7)Columbia University of New York, Palisades, NY, United States, (8)University of California Davis, Davis, CA, United States, (9)University of California, Berkeley, CA, United States, (10)Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, United States, (11)University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States
Abstract:
Many factors drive short- and long-term trends in forest biomass production. Replication at multiple scales, from within individual trees up to continental scales, is necessary to determine factors of growth and at what scale they are most important. Here we report on patterns of biomass production from within and across a micro-network of three forests in the northeastern US. Each forest has different histories and species composition, but each is within a similar climatological setting, which gives insight on important factors of short- and long-term patterns of forest production. One emergent pattern is that two forests are showing a large uptick in production over the last decade. Coincident to this uptick, late-season biomass production is showing a significant increase, even among 150-200+ year old trees. The third forest experienced a severe ice storm in the early-Aughts that paused a three-decade trend of increasing production. In the least diverse forest, the most dominant species drives most of the annual to decadal trend in production. In the most diverse forest, no one species appears to be driving landscape-level production, yet the emergent pattern of production reflects not only drought and pluvial events, but the impact of invasive species and the ice storm. Variation in annual biomass production for most species is strongly related to annual variations in soil moisture. Interestingly at the species level, coherency of growth among yellow birch is lower in the oldest forest in which is it is common versus the youngest forest. Differences in coherency suggest different drivers operating at different scales. Growth of red maple is also driven by moisture, but competition appears to be driving a long-term decline of individuals below the canopy. The decline begins soon after a severe defoliation event. In this same forest, however, significant wetting and warming over the last two decades appears to have reduced some of the climatic constraints on red maple’s annual growth. Our micro-network gives insight to the many potential factors on the long-term development of and biomass production in forests.
