Abstract
Recent widespread and severe bark beetle outbreaks in western North America have resulted in larger carbon (C) pools in beetle-killed trees than in fire-killed trees (Hicke and others 2013). Mortality from these outbreaks modifies forest structure, changes the course of forest development, and affects nutrient and carbon cycling at multiple scales of time and space (Edburg and others 2012, Hansen 2014, Hicke and others 2012). Knowledge of post-outbreak C productivity (the rate of stand-level C accumulation from live plants) and storage (the amount of C biomass held in stands at a point in time) will aid prediction of regional forest C balance (i.e., the net rate of C accumulation or loss from the ecosystem) (Kashian and others 2013). More information is needed to understand the possible contributions of post-outbreak stands to atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) content. For example, Kurz and others (2008) suggest that the recent outbreaks in western Canada were large enough to increase global atmospheric CO2, whereas eddy covariance data suggest that post-outbreak stands are near C neutral (Brown and others 2012, Moore and others 2013).
Parent Publication
Citation
Hansen, E. Matthew; Amacher, Michael C.; Van Miegroet, Helga; Long, James N.; Ryan, Michael G. 2016. Chapter 11: The Influence of Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreaks on Carbon Productivity and Storage in Central U.S. Rockies Lodgepole Pine Forests (Project INT-EM-B-10-03). Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-213. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 10 p.
