This content will become publicly available on July 1, 2025
- Award ID(s):
- 2330317
- PAR ID:
- 10553903
- Publisher / Repository:
- ScienceDirect
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
- Volume:
- 354
- Issue:
- C
- ISSN:
- 0168-1923
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 110076
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
Background Deciduous forests in eastern North America experienced a widespread and intense spongy moth (Lymantria dispar) infestation in 2021. This study quantified the impact of this spongy moth infestation on carbon (C) cycle in forests across the Great Lakes region in Canada, utilizing high-resolution (10 × 10 m2) Sentinel-2 satellite remote sensing images and eddy covariance (EC) flux data. Study results showed a significant reduction in leaf area index (LAI) and gross primary productivity (GPP) values in deciduous and mixed forests in the region in 2021. Results Remote sensing derived, growing season mean LAI values of deciduous (mixed) forests were 3.66 (3.18), 2.74 (2.64), and 3.53 (2.94) m2 m−2 in 2020, 2021 and 2022, respectively, indicating about 24 (14)% reduction in LAI, as compared to pre- and post-infestation years. Similarly, growing season GPP values in deciduous (mixed) forests were 1338 (1208), 868 (932), and 1367 (1175) g C m−2, respectively in 2020, 2021 and 2022, showing about 35 (22)% reduction in GPP in 2021 as compared to pre- and post-infestation years. This infestation induced reduction in GPP of deciduous and mixed forests, when upscaled to whole study area (178,000 km2), resulted in 21.1 (21.4) Mt of C loss as compared to 2020 (2022), respectively. It shows the large scale of C losses caused by this infestation in Canadian Great Lakes region. Conclusions The methods developed in this study offer valuable tools to assess and quantify natural disturbance impacts on the regional C balance of forest ecosystems by integrating field observations, high-resolution remote sensing data and models. Study results will also help in developing sustainable forest management practices to achieve net-zero C emission goals through nature-based climate change solutions.more » « less
-
Atkins, Jeff (Ed.)Abstract Understanding connections between ecosystem nitrogen (N) cycling and invasive insect defoliation could facilitate the prediction of disturbance impacts across a range of spatial scales. In this study we investigated relationships between ecosystem N cycling and tree defoliation during a recent 2015–18 irruption of invasive gypsy moth caterpillars (Lymantria dispar), which can cause tree stress and sometimes mortality following multiple years of defoliation. Nitrogen is a critical nutrient that limits the growth of caterpillars and plants in temperate forests. In this study, we assessed the associations among N concentrations, soil solution N availability and defoliation intensity by L. dispar at the scale of individual trees and forest plots. We measured leaf and soil N concentrations and soil solution inorganic N availability among individual red oak trees (Quercus rubra) in Amherst, MA and across a network of forest plots in Central Massachusetts. We combined these field data with estimated defoliation severity derived from Landsat imagery to assess relationships between plot-scale defoliation and ecosystem N cycling. We found that trees in soil with lower N concentrations experienced more herbivory than trees in soil with higher N concentrations. Additionally, forest plots with lower N soil were correlated with more severe L. dispar defoliation, which matched the tree-level relationship. The amount of inorganic N in soil solution was strongly positively correlated with defoliation intensity and the number of sequential years of defoliation. These results suggested that higher ecosystem N pools might promote the resistance of oak trees to L. dispar defoliation and that defoliation severity across multiple years is associated with a linear increase in soil solution inorganic N.more » « less
-
Abstract Wetlands are important sources of methane (CH4) and sinks of carbon dioxide (CO2). However, little is known about CH4and CO2fluxes and dynamics of seasonally flooded tropical forests of South America in relation to local carbon (C) balances and atmospheric exchange. We measured net ecosystem fluxes of CH4and CO2in the Pantanal over 2014–2017 using tower‐based eddy covariance along with C measurements in soil, biomass and water. Our data indicate that seasonally flooded tropical forests are potentially large sinks for CO2but strong sources of CH4, particularly during inundation when reducing conditions in soils increase CH4production and limit CO2release. During inundation when soils were anaerobic, the flooded forest emitted 0.11 ± 0.002 g CH4‐C m−2 d−1and absorbed 1.6 ± 0.2 g CO2‐C m−2 d−1(mean ± 95% confidence interval for the entire study period). Following the recession of floodwaters, soils rapidly became aerobic and CH4emissions decreased significantly (0.002 ± 0.001 g CH4‐C m−2 d−1) but remained a net source, while the net CO2flux flipped from being a net sink during anaerobic periods to acting as a source during aerobic periods. CH4fluxes were 50 times higher in the wet season; DOC was a minor component in the net ecosystem carbon balance. Daily fluxes of CO2and CH4were similar in all years for each season, but annual net fluxes varied primarily in relation to flood duration. While the ecosystem was a net C sink on an annual basis (absorbing 218 g C m−2(as CH4‐C + CO2‐C) in anaerobic phases and emitting 76 g C m−2in aerobic phases), high CH4effluxes during the anaerobic flooded phase and modest CH4effluxes during the aerobic phase indicate that seasonally flooded tropical forests can be a net source of radiative forcings on an annual basis, thus acting as an amplifying feedback on global warming.
-
Abstract Many secondary deciduous forests of eastern North America are approaching a transition in which mature early‐successional trees are declining, resulting in an uncertain future for this century‐long carbon (C) sink. We initiated the Forest Accelerated Succession Experiment (FASET) at the University of Michigan Biological Station to examine the patterns and mechanisms underlying forest C cycling following the stem girdling‐induced mortality of >6,700 early‐successional
Populus spp. (aspen) andBetula papyrifera (paper birch). Meteorological flux tower‐based C cycling observations from the 33‐ha treatment forest have been paired with those from a nearby unmanipulated forest since 2008. Following over a decade of observations, we revisit our core hypothesis: that net ecosystem production (NEP) would increase following the transition to mid‐late‐successional species dominance due to increased canopy structural complexity. Supporting our hypothesis, NEP was stable, briefly declined, and then increased relative to the control in the decade following disturbance; however, increasing NEP was not associated with rising structural complexity but rather with a rapid 1‐yr recovery of total leaf area index as mid‐late‐successionalAcer ,Quercus , andPinus assumed canopy dominance. The transition to mid‐late‐successional species dominance improved carbon‐use efficiency (CUE = NEP/gross primary production) as ecosystem respiration declined. Similar soil respiration rates in control and treatment forests, along with species differences in leaf physiology and the rising relative growth rates of mid‐late‐successional species in the treatment forest, suggest changes in aboveground plant respiration and growth were primarily responsible for increases in NEP. We conclude that deciduous forests transitioning from early to middle succession are capable of sustained or increased NEP, even when experiencing extensive tree mortality. This adds to mounting evidence that aging deciduous forests in the region will function as C sinks for decades to come. -
It is often logistically impractical to measure forest defoliation events in the field due to seasonal variability in larval feeding phenology (e.g., start, peak, and end) in any given year. As such, field data collections are either incomplete or at coarse temporal resolutions, both of which result in inaccurate estimation of annual defoliation (frass or foliage loss). Using Choristoneura pinus F. and Lymantria dispar dispar L., we present a novel approach that leverages a weather-driven insect simulation model (BioSIM) and defoliation field data. Our approach includes optimization of a weighting parameter (w) for each instar and imputation of defoliation. Results show a negative skew in this weighting parameter, where the second to last instar in a season exhibits the maxi- mum consumption and provides better estimates of annual frass and foliage biomass loss where sampling data gaps exist. Respective cross-validation RMSE (and normalized RMSE) results for C. pinus and L. dispar dispar are 77.53 kg·ha−¹ (0.16) and 38.24 kg·ha−¹ (0.02) for frass and 74.85 kg·ha−¹ (0.10) and 47.77 kg·ha−¹ (0.02) for foliage biomass loss imputation. Our method provides better estimates for ecosystem studies that leverage remote sensing data to scale defoliation rates from the field to broader landscapes and regions.more » « less