Fire suppression and ecosystem carbon storage
TL;DR: A 35-year controlled burning experiment in Minnesota oak savanna showed that fire frequency had a great impact on ecosystem carbon (C) stores, with most carbon stored in woody biomass.
Abstract: A 35-year controlled burning experiment in Minnesota oak savanna showed that fire frequency had a great impact on ecosystem carbon (C) stores. Specifically, compared to the historical fire regime, fire suppression led to an average of 1.8 Mg·ha−1·yr−1 of C storage, with most carbon stored in woody biomass. Forest floor carbon stores were also significantly impacted by fire frequency, but there were no detectable effects of fire suppression on carbon in soil and fine roots combined, or in woody debris. Total ecosystem C stores averaged ∼110 Mg/ha in stands experiencing presettlement fire frequencies, but ∼220 Mg/ha in stands experiencing fire suppression. If comparable rates of C storage were to occur in other ecosystems in response to the current extent of fire suppression in the United States, fire suppression in the USA might account for 8–20% of missing global carbon.
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01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment proposed a classification framework for ecosystem services that has four top-level classes: provisioning services, which are tangible goods and typically have well-defined markets; cultural services, based on aesthetic or amenity value, which also often have markets; regulating services which stabilize the supply of either of the above or in other cases reduce the risk of natural disasters as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment proposed a classification framework for ecosystem services that has four top-level classes: provisioning services, which are tangible goods and typically have well-defined markets; cultural services, based on aesthetic or amenity value, which also often have markets; regulating services, which stabilize the supply of either of the above or in other cases reduce the risk of natural disasters; and supporting services, which are ecological processes without which none of the above would occur but which are not themselves directly used by people. The latter two service classes seldom have existing markets.
8 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: Current efforts to restore this tree, especially by the out-planting of rust-resistant seedlings, can benefit from this research as a knowledge of the ECM fungi could help reestablish this tree in peril.
Abstract: Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) is an integral component of subalpine ecosystems in the Western United States where it is considered a keystone species. The mature forests which colonize harsh treeline terrain provide habitat for flora and fauna an essential food source to grizzly bears, and are also important in watershed dynamics. Threats which have led to the decline of this tree species, up to 40-90% in parts of its range, include blister rust, mountain pine beetle, fire suppression, and climate change. Pines are obligate ectomycorrhizal symbionts, and host mutualistic fungi on their roots beneficial to tree establishment and sustainability; however, little is known of the ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi crucial to the survival of P. albicaulis. The goal of this study was to discover the species of ECM fungi associated with P. albicaulis in the Northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. A survey of fruiting structures of ECM fungi in mature P. albicaulis forests from five mountain ranges revealed at least 44 species. ECM fungi in the Boletales and Cortinariales comprised 50% of the species, 24% were hypogeous, and one Chroogomphus species is new to science. An examination of the roots of P. albicaulis seedlings using morphotyping and sequencing of the ITS region revealed 19 species of ECM fungi, 11 of which were not previously revealed by sporocarps, including 2 Tomentelloid types. Cenococcum geophilum was the most frequent (64% of seedlings) and abundant (49% of root tips) ECM fungus on roots. Pinus albicaulis seeds are primarily distributed by Clark’s nutcrackers which cache seed on open slopes at a distance from mature forests. A comparison of the ECM fungi on seedlings in avalanche paths and adjacent mature forests on Scotch Bonnet Mountain revealed a similar species richness, however species composition only partially overlapped . Of necessity, some “seedling clusters” were sampled instead of single seedlings, mostly from paths and they appeared to host more ECM fungi, which likely skewed results. Current efforts to restore this tree, especially by the out-planting of rust-resistant seedlings, can benefit from this research as a knowledge of the ECM fungi could help reestablish this tree in peril.
8 citations
Cites background from "Fire suppression and ecosystem carb..."
...This practice has continued through today with severe consequences for many forests in the U.S. that have evolved with a periodic fire regime (Tilman et al. 2000)....
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...that have evolved with a periodic fire regime (Tilman et al. 2000)....
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TL;DR: This article investigated the effect of fire regime on the rate, energetic efficiency, and temperature sensitivity of soil heterotrophic respiration and associated properties across a range of incubation temperatures (15, 25, and 35°C).
Abstract: Changes in fire regime and soil temperatures will be simultaneous symptoms of climate change in many regions around the world, yet very few studies have investigated how these factors will interact to affect soil carbon (C) cycling. Interacting effects of fire regime and temperature on soil C cycling processes might constitute an important but poorly-understood feedback to the global climate system. Using soils from one of the world's longest running prescribed fire trials in eastern Australia, we investigated the effect of fire regime on the rate, energetic efficiency, and temperature sensitivity of soil heterotrophic respiration and associated properties across a range of incubation temperatures (15 °C, 25 °C, and 35 °C). Levels of total, labile, soluble, and microbial biomass C were 32%, 59%, 64%, and 38% lower, respectively, in biennially-burned (2yB) soils than in soils that had not been exposed to fire since 1969 (NB soils). Moreover, while rates of heterotrophic respiration did not vary among NB, 2yB or quadrennially-burned (4yB) soils during the 55-day incubation period, values of qCO2 (which are inversely related to microbial energetic efficiency) were 59.8% higher in 2yB soils than in NB soils. This suggests that biennial-burning is associated with soil conditions that promote energetic inefficiency in the microbial community and highlights the role of environmental stress as a determinant of respiratory responses to fire regime. Respiration temperature sensitivity (i.e. Q10 values) of 2yB soils was 86% greater than that of 4yB soils at the temperature range of 15–25 °C. This effect was absent at the temperature range of 25–35 °C and in soils to which labile C levels had been boosted through glucose addition. This pattern in Q10 values might be attributed to low quality soil organic matter in 2yB soils in combination with mechanisms associated with microbial community structure. Together these results enhance our understanding of C cycling in fire-affected soils and suggest a potentially important positive feedback between fire, climate change, and the terrestrial C cycle that warrants further investigation.
7 citations
TL;DR: A market-based approach for the conservation of lands in an agricultural landscape is described in this article, which is based on the Wisconsin Healthy Grown potato ecolabel and the concept of certification.
Abstract: We report on a project to establish a market-based approach for the conservation of lands in an agricultural landscape. It is based on the Wisconsin Healthy Grown potato ecolabel, and the concept of certification. Potatoes produced in certified fields can be marketed under the ecolabel and, it is hoped, sold at a premium that returns to the growers to support the additional costs of environmentally sensitive practices. Although the label was launched on the basis of in-field practices, the growers and supporting conservation non-governmental organizations (NGOs) intended from the beginning to include a component into the certification that would require restoration and ecologically sound management of native communities on non-crop lands owned by participating farmers. We describe here the process by which this ‘natural community standard’ was developed and included within the certification. The certification requires either a financial or in-kind commitment to land management actions from a list approved...
7 citations
Cites background from "Fire suppression and ecosystem carb..."
...Frequent burning may also reduce the carbon storage function (Tilman et al., 2000)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the role of grazing in land degradation is investigated and three approaches have been advocated to improve human-environment understanding: (a) systems science that emphasises feedbacks between integrated human and natural systems; (b) computer-simulation modelling that explicitly represents the interaction of individual human decisions and physical processes; and (c) participatory research that emphasizes engagement with the actors in the region being studied.
Abstract: Land degradation is difficult to define because land can only be considered degraded with respect to some use to which it may be put. However, physical and biological properties of the landscape are typically measured to characterize degradation rather than its inherent or potential utility. One approach to characterizing land degradation is by assessing the provisioning of ecosystem services. Most provisioning ecosystem services depend on water, and water management is crucial to maintaining and increasing ecosystem services in arid lands. In contrast, vegetation change has been most commonly employed as an indicator of land degradation. Nevertheless, the close relationship that exists between vegetation and other biophysical processes of the environment means that any change in vegetation will result in a concomitant change to these other processes also. Of particular importance is a change in vegetation distribution since the spatial distribution of associated biophysical parameters controls landscape fluxes, and hence degradation, by controlling landscape connectivity. From a management perspective, an understanding of the degree of connectivity in a landscape can aid in triage of remediation efforts. Areas that are dominated by long connected pathways will not respond to localized, small-scale manipulations because those pathways present inertia that a small-scale manipulation cannot overcome. Two important ecosystem services provided by drylands are grazing land and agricultural land. Both land uses can be drivers of degradation. The role of grazing in land degradation depends on several factors which can be grouped into three categories: number of animals, kind of animal species and grazing system. For agriculture, systematic crop residue removal without fertilisation, poor cultivation practices and extensive soil salinization are examples of mismanagement that may lead to land degradation. Aside from the immediate provisioning of food, drylands provide ecosystem services at a broader scale. Drylands are highly significant to the global carbon cycle. Land degradation in drylands has implications for the effectiveness of carbon sequestration as well as for storage (through soil erosion). Because many dryland soils have been degraded they are currently far from saturated with carbon and as a result their potential to sequester carbon may be highly significant. To understand land degradation better, efforts have been made to develop integrated human-environment research that overcomes the perceived deficiencies of reductionist, discipline-based research. However, much integrated environmental research to-date has resulted in a ‘hierarchical relationship’ between the human and physical components. Three approaches have been advocated to improve human-environment understanding: (a) systems science that emphasises feedbacks between integrated human and natural systems; (b) computer-simulation modelling that explicitly represents the interaction of individual human decisions and physical processes; and (c) participatory research that emphasises engagement with the actors in the region being studied. However, many questions remain open, and advancing beyond narrow scientific disciplinary specialization is vital if the hierarchical relationship in understanding physical and social causes of land degradation is to be broken.
7 citations
References
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Book•
06 Mar 1997
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a perspective of the global cycle of nitrogen and phosphorous, the global water cycle, and the global sulfur cycle from a global point of view.
Abstract: Part 1 Processes and reactions: origins the atmosphere the lithosphere the terrestrial biosphere biogeochemical cycling on land biogeochemistry in freshwater wetlands and lakes rivers and estuaries the sea. Part 2 Global cycles: the global water cycle the global carbon cycle the global cycle of nitrogen and phosphorous the global sulfur cycle a perspective.
3,871 citations
TL;DR: Slowing deforestation, combined with an increase in forestation and other management measures to improve forest ecosystem productivity, could conserve or sequester significant quantities of carbon.
Abstract: Forest systems cover more than 4.1 x 109 hectares of the Earth9s land area. Globally, forest vegetation and soils contain about 1146 petagrams of carbon, with approximately 37 percent of this carbon in low-latitude forests, 14 percent in mid-latitudes, and 49 percent at high latitudes. Over two-thirds of the carbon in forest ecosystems is contained in soils and associated peat deposits. In 1990, deforestation in the low latitudes emitted 1.6 ± 0.4 petagrams of carbon per year, whereas forest area expansion and growth in mid- and high-latitude forest sequestered 0.7 ± 0.2 petagrams of carbon per year, for a net flux to the atmosphere of 0.9 ± 0.4 petagrams of carbon per year. Slowing deforestation, combined with an increase in forestation and other management measures to improve forest ecosystem productivity, could conserve or sequester significant quantities of carbon. Future forest carbon cycling trends attributable to losses and regrowth associated with global climate and land-use change are uncertain. Model projections and some results suggest that forests could be carbon sinks or sources in the future.
3,175 citations
"Fire suppression and ecosystem carb..." refers background or methods in this paper
...…biomass creates ;20–25% of annual anthropogenic CO2 (Andreae 1991, Schimel 1995), modifications of fire frequency may significantly change regional and global C budgets (e.g., Fahenstock and Agee 1983, Andreae 1991, Stocks 1991, Dixon and Krankina 1993, Dixon et al. 1994, Sohngen and Haynes 1997)....
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...This work was supported by National Science Foundation Grant 9411972 and by the Andrew Mellon Foundation....
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...Our work supports the proposal that increased fire suppression and decreased anthropogenic burning of vegetation could significantly influence global carbon dynamics (Dixon et al. 1994, Sampson and Clark 1995, Sohngen and Haynes 1997, San Jose et al. 1998)....
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...Dixon et al. (1994) calculated that fire management in Russia could lead to long-term C storage of 0.6 3 1015 g C/yr....
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TL;DR: The terrestrial biosphere plays an important role in the global carbon cycle as mentioned in this paper, which is the fluxes of carbon among four main reservoirs: fossil carbon, the atmosphere, the oceans, and the terrestrial Biosphere.
Abstract: The terrestrial biosphere plays an important role in the global carbon cycle. In the 1994 Intergovernmental Panel Assessment on Climate Change (IPCC), an effort was made to improve the quantification of terrestrial exchanges and potential feedbacks from climate, changing CO2, and other factors; this paper presents the key results from that assessment, together with expanded discussion. The carbon cycle is the fluxes of carbon among four main reservoirs: fossil carbon, the atmosphere, the oceans, and the terrestrial biosphere. Emissions of fossil carbon during the 1980s averaged 5.5 Gt y−1. During the same period, the atmosphere gained 3.2 Gt C y−1 and the oceans are believed to have absorbed 2.0 Gt C y−1. The regrowing forests of the Northern Hemisphere may have absorbed 0.5 Gt C y−1 during this period. Meanwhile, tropical deforestation is thought to have released an average 1.6 Gt C y−1 over the 1980s. While the fluxes among the four pools should balance, the average 198Ds values lead to a ‘missing sink’ of 1.4 Gt C y−1 Several processes, including forest regrowth, CO2 fertilization of plant growth (c. 1.0 Gt C y−1), N deposition (c. 0.6 Gt C y−1), and their interactions, may account for the budget imbalance. However, it remains difficult to quantify the influences of these separate but interactive processes. Uncertainties in the individual numbers are large, and are themselves poorly quantified. This paper presents detail beyond the IPCC assessment on procedures used to approximate the flux uncertainties.
Lack of knowledge about positive and negative feedbacks from the biosphere is a major limiting factor to credible simulations of future atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Analyses of the atmospheric gradients of CO2 and 13 CO2 concentrations provide increasingly strong evidence for terrestrial sinks, potentially distributed between Northern Hemisphere and tropical regions, but conclusive detection in direct biomass and soil measurements remains elusive.
Current regional-to-global terrestrial ecosystem models with coupled carbon and nitrogen cycles represent the effects of CO2 fertilization differently, but all suggest longterm responses to CO2 that are substantially smaller than potential leaf- or laboratory whole plant-level responses. Analyses of emissions and biogeochemical fluxes consistent with eventual stabilization of atmospheric CO2 concentrations are sensitive to the way in which biospheric feedbacks are modeled by c. 15%. Decisions about land use can have effects of 100s of Gt C over the next few centuries, with similarly significant effects on the atmosphere.
Critical areas for future research are continued measurements and analyses of atmospheric data (CO2 and 13CO2) to serve as large-scale constraints, process studies of the scaling from the photosynthetic response to CO2 to whole-ecosystem carbon storage, and rigorous quantification of the effects of changing land use on carbon storage.
1,510 citations
"Fire suppression and ecosystem carb..." refers background or methods in this paper
...2680 Key words: carbon storage; fire suppression; missing carbon; oak savanna....
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...San Jose et al. (1998) calculated that fire suppression, by causing the transformation of the 2.8 3 107 ha Venezuelan Orinoco Llanos from grassland to semideciduous forest, could lead to a C sink of 0.08 3 1015 g C/yr....
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...Atmospheric CO2 is currently accumulating at ;3.2 3 1015 g C/yr (Schimel 1995)....
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...Dixon et al. (1994) calculated that fire management in Russia could lead to long-term C storage of 0.6 3 1015 g C/yr....
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...Because the burning of ecosystem biomass creates ;20–25% of annual anthropogenic CO2 (Andreae 1991, Schimel 1995), modifications of fire frequency may significantly change regional and global C budgets (e.g., Fahenstock and Agee 1983, Andreae 1991, Stocks 1991, Dixon and Krankina 1993, Dixon et al.…...
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TL;DR: The first edition of Schlesinger's Biogeochemistry in 1991 was an early entry in the field of Earth system science/global change, and has since gained sufficient popularity and demand to merit a second, extensively revised edition.
Abstract: Compared to the well-established disciplines, the field of Earth system science/global change has relatively few books from which to choose. Of the small subset of books dealing specifically with biogeochemical aspects of global change, the first edition of Schlesinger's Biogeochemistry in 1991 was an early entry. It has since gained sufficient popularity and demand to merit a second, extensively revised edition.
The first part of the book provides a general introduction to biogeochemistry and cycles, and to the origin of elements, our planet, and life on Earth. It then describes the functioning and biogeochemistry of the atmosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere, including marine and freshwater systems. Although system function and features are stressed, the author begins to introduce global change topics, such as soil organic matter and global change in Chapter 5, and landscape and mass balance in Chapter 6.
1,075 citations
"Fire suppression and ecosystem carb..." refers background or methods in this paper
...This work was supported by National Science Foundation Grant 9411972 and by the Andrew Mellon Foundation....
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...Moreover, the immense global extent of tropical savanna and woodland, 2.45 3 109 ha (Schlesinger 1997), suggests that even moderate fire suppression in this ecosystem type could provide a globally significant C sink....
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TL;DR: The rates at which lands in the United States were cleared for agriculture, abandoned, harvested for wood, and burned were reconstructed from historical data for the period 1700-1990 and used in a terrestrial carbon model to calculate annual changes in the amount of carbon stored in terrestrial ecosystems, including wood products.
Abstract: The rates at which lands in the United States were cleared for agriculture, abandoned, harvested for wood, and burned were reconstructed from historical data for the period 1700-1990 and used in a terrestrial carbon model to calculate annual changes in the amount of carbon stored in terrestrial ecosystems, including wood products. Changes in land use released 27 +/- 6 petagrams of carbon to the atmosphere before 1945 and accumulated 2 +/- 2 petagrams of carbon after 1945, largely as a result of fire suppression and forest growth on abandoned farmlands. During the 1980s, the net flux of carbon attributable to land management offset 10 to 30 percent of U.S. fossil fuel emissions.
1,035 citations
"Fire suppression and ecosystem carb..." refers background or methods in this paper
...Houghton et al. (1999) estimated various sources of C storage in the United States....
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...Because fire suppression might lead to a period of C accumulation (Houghton et al. 1999), current fire suppression in the United States (Fig....
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...This work was supported by National Science Foundation Grant 9411972 and by the Andrew Mellon Foundation....
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...2680 Key words: carbon storage; fire suppression; missing carbon; oak savanna....
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