carbon flux of down woody materials in forests of the north central united states碳通量的木质材料在北美国中部的森林.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Forestry Research Volume 2010, Article ID 413703, 9 pages doi:10.1155/2010/413703 Research Article Carbon Flux of Down Woody Materials in Forests of the North Central United States C. W. Woodall USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Saint Paul, MN 55108, USA Correspondence should be addressed to C. W. Woodall, cwoodall@fs.fed.us Received 9 June 2009; Revised 13 October 2009; Accepted 5 November 2009 Academic Editor: Hamish Kimmins Copyright © 2010 C. W. Woodall. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Across large scales, the carbon (C) flux of down woody material (DWM) detrital pools has largely been simulated based on forest stand attributes (e.g., stand age and forest type). The annual change in forest DWM C stocks and other attributes (e.g., size and decay class changes) was assessed using a forest inventory in the north central United States to provide an empirical assessment of strategic-scale DWM C flux. Using DWM inventory data from the USDA Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis program, DWM C stocks were found to be relatively static across the study region with an annual flux rate not statistically different from zero. Mean C flux rates across the study area were −0.25, −0.12, −0.01, and −0.04 (Mg/ha/yr) for standing live trees, standing dead trees, coarse woody debris, and fine woody debris, respectively. Flux rates varied in their both magnitude and status (emission/sequestration) by forest types, latitude, and DWM component size. Given the complex dynamics of DWM C flux, early