Empirical Constraints on Water Stress-induced Tree Mortality and its Impacts on Forest Biomass Dynamics in Western North America

Abstract:

It is widely appreciated that forest biomass dynamics do not follow smooth sigmoidal age response functions, yet accounting for realistic overshoot-and-collapse cycles remains a big challenge. Here, millions of observations of vital status at permanent sample plots from Canada and the U.S. were used to predict probability of tree mortality (Pm) based on segmented logistic regression functions of xylem water potential (WPX) derived from a simplified model of plant water transport for dominant boreal and temperate North American tree species. First, we demonstrate that hydraulic limits are clearly detectable from the increase of Pm at the lowest levels of WPX and that the relationship is strongly defined by increasing vulnerability (decreasing WPX) as tree height (h) increases. Second, we demonstrate the implications of representing water stress-induced mortality on regional simulations of net ecosystem biomass production (NEBP), drawing on examples of specific collapse events where we have observations of NEBP for comparison. Simulations suggest that extreme surface energy balance anomalies during 1981 and 1998 triggered catastrophic levels of mortality in regions of western North America. Yet, simulations may still greatly underestimate the impact of these collapse events if associations exist between WPX and insect outbreaks. Nevertheless, the models suggest that a combination of size-dependent hydraulic limits and low-frequency variability in the surface energy balance conspire to produce overshoot-and-collapse cycles that strongly shaped biomass dynamics in western North America over recent decades.