HR: 1340h
AN: B43D-1604    [Abstracts]
TI: Does Western US forest thickening increase carbon stored in aboveground biomass?
AU: * Fellows, A
EM: afellows@uci.edu
AF: University of California, Irvine, Croul Hall, Irvine, CA 92697-3100, United States
AU: Goulden, M
EM: mgoulden@uci.edu
AF: University of California, Irvine, Croul Hall, Irvine, CA 92697-3100, United States
AB: Forest thickening in Western United States forests, which is characterized by an increase in stem density, may have arisen from alterations in historic fire regimes brought about by fire suppression. This has led to a shift in forest structure and demography from a comparatively sparse forest composed of a few large trees to one composed of a higher number of small trees. This study compares plots from the contemporary Forest Inventory Analysis dataset with the historic Weislander Vegetation Type Mapping dataset in designated California wilderness areas to quantitatively ascertain the change in carbon stored in aboveground live biomass due to forest thickening and associated demographic shifts for California's forests over a 60 year period. There was no significant change in stand density when averaged over all forest types. However, live aboveground carbon pools decreased by nearly 50 Mg C/ha, which corresponds to an average loss of 0.8 Mg C/ha/year. Mid-elevation forests showed a likely thickening with a reduction in live aboveground carbon. This research helps refine carbon budgets for Western North America by improving our understanding of forest thickening as an atmospheric carbon sink.
DE: 0428 Carbon cycling (4806)
DE: 1632 Land cover change
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting