8000-year doubling of Midwestern forest biomass driven by population- and biome-scale processes

Raiho, Ann; Cj, Paciorek; Dawson, Andria; Jackson, Stephen T.; Mladenoff, David J.; Williams, John W.; McLachlan, J. S.

doi:10.1126/science.abk3126

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Although we did not address legacy effects empirically in this study, the observed lower C stocks in the early 20th century in the East, as well as the rejuvenation and strong stock regrowth in this region compared to the other regions and later decades, point to the importance of past uses of forests for contemporary observed forest developments. This argumentation is in line with historical literature (e.g., MacCleery, 1993;Maxwell, 1973) and previous studies on past U.S. land use and forest change (e.g., Houghton, 1999;Raiho et al, 2022).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

The Role of Wildfires in the Interplay of Forest Carbon Stocks and Wood Harvest in the Contiguous United States During the 20th Century

Magerl

Gingrich

Matej

et al. 2023

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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Wildfires and land use play a central role in the long‐term carbon (C) dynamics of forested ecosystems of the United States. Understanding their linkages with changes in biomass, resource use and consumption in the context of climate change mitigation is crucial. We reconstruct a long‐term C balance of forests in the contiguous U.S. using historical reports, satellite data and other sources at multiple scales (national scale 1926‐2017, regional level 1941‐2017) to disentangle the drivers of biomass C stock change. The balance includes removals of forest biomass by fire, by extraction of woody biomass, by forest grazing, and by biomass stock change, their sum representing the net ecosystem productivity (NEP). Nationally, the total forest NEP increased for most of the 20th century while fire, harvest and grazing reduced total forest stocks on average by 14%, 51% and 6%, respectively, resulting in a net increase in C stock density of nearly 40%. Recovery from past land‐use, plus reductions in wildfires and forest grazing coincide with consistent forest regrowth in the eastern U.S. but associated C stock increases were offset by increased wood harvest. C stock changes across the Western U.S. fluctuated, with fire, harvest, and other disturbances (e.g., insects, droughts) reducing stocks on average by 14%, 81%, and 7%, respectively, resulting in a net growth in C stock density of 14%. Although wildfire activities increased in recent decades, harvest was the key driver in the forest C balance in all regions for most of the observed timeframe.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

The Role of Wildfires in the Interplay of Forest Carbon Stocks and Wood Harvest in the Contiguous United States During the 20th Century

Magerl

Gingrich

Matej

et al. 2023

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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“…However, accounting for durability concerns is challenging, as the risk to existing carbon stores depends on how forests respond to climate change. Paleoecological records show that ecosystems can reorganize in response to climate-driven shifts (Iglesias and Whitlock, 2020;Raiho et al, 2022), but rapid environmental changes may hinder successful reorganization, leading to widespread mortality as many forests approach ecological tipping points (McDowell et al, 2020;Forzieri et al, 2022;Reyer et al, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insights for Nature-based Climate Solutions: Managing Forests for Climate Resilience and Carbon Stability

Murphy,

Rollinson,

Dietze

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Successful implementation of forest management as a Nature-based Climate Solution is dependent on the durability of management-induced changes in forest carbon storage and sequestration. As forests face unprecedented stability risks in the face of ongoing climate change, much remains unknown regarding how management will impact forest stability, or how interactions with climate might shift the response of forests to management across spatiotemporal scales. Here, we used a process-based model to simulate multi-decadal projections of forest dynamics in response to changes in management and climate. Simulations were conducted across gradients in forest type, edaphic factors, and management intensity under two alternate radiative forcing scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). This allowed for the quantification of forest stability shifts in response to climate change, and the role of management in modulating that response, where ecosystem stability is characterized as the resilience and temporal stability of net primary production, aboveground biomass, and soil carbon. Our results indicate that forest structure is primarily shaped by management, but the same management strategy often produced divergent structures over time, due to interactions with regional climate change. We found that management can be used to increase stability and minimize the release of stored carbon by reducing mortality, but also highlight the regional dependency of management-induced changes in resilience to climate change.

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“…Every place on Earth has a dynamic ecological trajectory based on temperature, rainfall, soils, natural disturbances, and other conditions. In the Northeast and Upper Great Lakes regions of the United States the predominant ecological trajectory of the landscape in the absence of intensive human activity is toward "old-growth" forests: a resilient, diverse, carbon-dense, and self-sustaining "shifting mosaic" of tree ages, microhabitats, and native species above and below ground (Pelley, 2009;Raiho et al, 2022).…”

Section: History Of Forest Development and Disturbancementioning

confidence: 99%

Natural forests for a safe climate: Enhancing ecosystem integrity, biodiversity and adaptive capacity for climate mitigation

2024

Frontiers Research Topics

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Frontiers is more than just an open access publisher of scholarly articles: it is a pioneering approach to the world of academia, radically improving the way scholarly research is managed. The grand vision of Frontiers is a world where all people have an equal opportunity to seek, share and generate knowledge. Frontiers provides immediate and permanent online open access to all its publications, but this alone is not enough to realize our grand goals. Frontiers journal seriesThe Frontiers journal series is a multi-tier and interdisciplinary set of openaccess, online journals, promising a paradigm shift from the current review, selection and dissemination processes in academic publishing. All Frontiers journals are driven by researchers for researchers; therefore, they constitute a service to the scholarly community. At the same time, the Frontiers journal series operates on a revolutionary invention, the tiered publishing system, initially addressing specific communities of scholars, and gradually climbing up to broader public understanding, thus serving the interests of the lay society, too. Dedication to qualityEach Frontiers article is a landmark of the highest quality, thanks to genuinely collaborative interactions between authors and review editors, who include some of the world's best academicians. Research must be certified by peers before entering a stream of knowledge that may eventually reach the public -and shape society; therefore, Frontiers only applies the most rigorous and unbiased reviews. Frontiers revolutionizes research publishing by freely delivering the most outstanding research, evaluated with no bias from both the academic and social point of view. By applying the most advanced information technologies, Frontiers is catapulting scholarly publishing into a new generation. What are Frontiers Research Topics?Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers journals series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area.

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8000-year doubling of Midwestern forest biomass driven by population- and biome-scale processes

Cited by 8 publications

References 60 publications

The Role of Wildfires in the Interplay of Forest Carbon Stocks and Wood Harvest in the Contiguous United States During the 20th Century

The Role of Wildfires in the Interplay of Forest Carbon Stocks and Wood Harvest in the Contiguous United States During the 20th Century

Insights for Nature-based Climate Solutions: Managing Forests for Climate Resilience and Carbon Stability

Natural forests for a safe climate: Enhancing ecosystem integrity, biodiversity and adaptive capacity for climate mitigation

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