Across the globe, the forest carbon sink is increasingly vulnerable to an expanding array of low- to moderate-severity disturbances. However, some forest ecosystems exhibit functional resistance (i.e., the capacity of ecosystems to continue functioning as usual) following disturbances such as extreme weather events and insect or fungal pathogen outbreaks. Unlike severe disturbances (e.g., stand-replacing wildfires), moderate severity disturbances do not always result in near-term declines in forest production because of the potential for compensatory growth, including enhanced subcanopy production. Community-wide shifts in subcanopy plant functional traits, prompted by disturbance-driven environmental change, may play a key mechanistic role in resisting declines in net primary production (NPP) up to thresholds of canopy loss. However, the temporal dynamics of these shifts, as well as the upper limits of disturbance for which subcanopy production can compensate, remain poorly characterized. In this study, we leverage a 4-year dataset from an experimental forest disturbance in northern Michigan to assess subcanopy community trait shifts as well as their utility in predicting ecosystem NPP resistance across a wide range of implemented disturbance severities. Through mechanical girdling of stems, we achieved a gradient of severity from 0% (i.e., control) to 45, 65, and 85% targeted gross canopy defoliation, replicated across four landscape ecosystems broadly representative of the Upper Great Lakes ecoregion. We found that three of four examined subcanopy community weighted mean (CWM) traits including leaf photosynthetic rate ( p = 0.04), stomatal conductance ( p = 0.07), and the red edge normalized difference vegetation index ( p < 0.0001) shifted rapidly following disturbance but before widespread changes in subcanopy light environment triggered by canopy tree mortality. Surprisingly, stimulated subcanopy production fully compensated for upper canopy losses across our gradient of experimental severities, achieving complete resistance (i.e., no significant interannual differences from control) of whole ecosystem NPP even in the 85% disturbance treatment. Additionally, we identified a probable mechanistic switch from nutrient-driven to light-driven trait shifts as disturbance progressed. Our findings suggest that remotely sensed traits such as the red edge normalized difference vegetation index (reNDVI) could be particularly sensitive and robust predictors of production response to disturbance, even across compositionally diverse forests. The potential of leaf spectral indices to predict post-disturbance functional resistance is promising given the capabilities of airborne to satellite remote sensing. We conclude that dynamic functional trait shifts following disturbance can be used to predict production response across a wide range of disturbance severities.
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Forest structure, diversity, and primary production in relation to disturbance severity
*Differential disturbance severity effects on forest vegetation structure, species diversity, and net primary production (NPP) have been long theorized and observed. Here, we examined these factors concurrently to explore the potential for a mechanistic pathway linking disturbance severity, changes in light environment, leaf functional response, and wood NPP in a temperate hardwood forest.
*Using a suite of measurements spanning an experimental gradient of tree mortality, we evaluated the direction and magnitude of change in vegetation structural and diversity indexes in relation to wood NPP. Informed by prior observations, we hypothesized that forest structural and species diversity changes and wood NPP would exhibit either a linear, unimodal, or threshold response in relation to disturbance severity. We expected increasing disturbance severity would progressively shift subcanopy light availability and leaf traits, thereby coupling structural and species diversity changes with primary production.
*Linear or unimodal changes in three of four vegetation structural indexes were observed across the gradient in disturbance severity. However, disturbance-related changes in vegetation structure were not consistently correlated with shifts in light environment, leaf traits, and wood NPP. Species diversity indexes did not change in response to rising disturbance severity.
*We conclude that, in our study system, the sensitivity of wood NPP to rising disturbance severity is generally tied to changing vegetation structure but not species diversity. Changes in vegetation structure are inconsistently coupled with light environment and leaf traits, resulting in mixed support for our hypothesized cascade linking disturbance severity to wood NPP.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1655095
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10148256
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Ecology and Evolution
- ISSN:
- 2045-7758
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. -
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6209
