Changes in Carbon Pools Influenced by Changes in Physiography a Decade Following Wildfire in Black Spruce Forests of Interior Alaska

Abstract:

Topography and parent material (PM) texture control site drainage owing to changes in water holding capacity, infiltration, and insolation. In turn, these factors also affect fire regime. However, the interactive effects of site physiography, edaphic controls, and wildfire severity on ecosystem carbon accrual after wildfire are poorly understood. Throughout the summer of 2004 an area the size of Massachusetts burned in interior Alaska, and several studies were initiated to investigate the controls on organic layer consumption. In this study we resampled organic layer depths, below ground carbon stocks, and site revegetation from 38 burned black spruce sites from the 2004 wildfires. We collected ten year post-fire measurements of soil and woody-debris pools with the goal of understanding effects of landscape position, site physiography (topography/aspect and parent material soil texture), and fire severity (burn depth) on changes in carbon accumulation following wildfire. We also measured seedling recruitment to ascertain changes in post-fire succession and how this might affect trajectories of ecosystem carbon storage in the future.