Changes in aboveground biomass following alternative harvesting in oak-hickory forests in the eastern USA

doi:10.3832/ifor1349-007

Changes in aboveground biomass following alternative harvesting in oak-hickory forests in the eastern USA

Jiquan Chen^(1-2) , Jianye Xu⁽²⁾, Randy Jensen⁽³⁾, John Kabrick⁽⁴⁾

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, Volume 8, Issue 5, Pages 652-660 (2015)
doi: https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor1349-007
Published: Jan 13, 2015 - Copyright © 2015 SISEF

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Managing forest lands for the sustainability of ecosystem functions and services by developing and implementing sound silvicultural methods through site-specific practices is a core concept in ecosystem management. In this study, we used long-term data collected at the extensive plots of the Missouri Forest Ecosystem Project (MOFEP) in the southeastern Missouri Ozarks (USA) to study the changes in aboveground biomass (AGB) under three silvicultural treatments: even-aged management sites (EAM), uneven-aged management sites (UAM), and non-harvested management sites (NHM). Treatments changed the magnitude of AGB dynamics. The forests maintained an AGB of 147.9 Mg ha^-1 in 1990 and it increased to 175.6 Mg ha^-1 by 2009. The forests were manipulated with four treatments: clear-cut, non-harvest, uneven-aged single-tree, and uneven-aged group selection and yielded AGB values of 30.7, 139.5, 125.7, and 148.7 Mg ha^-1 of AGB in 2009, respectively. Over the 18-year study period, these forests accumulated 1.78 ± 0.26 Mg ha^-1 yr^-1, ranging from 1.60 to 1.94 Mg ha^-1 yr^-1at the NHM plots. Changes in the net AGB growth rate were contributed by different growth rates of live trees and mortality and exhibited clear intra-annual variation during the five sampling periods. We observed a decreasing contribution of Quercus velutina (black oak) AGB (~6%), an increasing trend for Q. alba (white oak), and a stable change for Q. coccinea (scarlet oak) during the study period.

Keywords

Aboveground Biomass, MOFEP, Oak-hickory Forest, Forest Management, Alternative Harvest, Carbon

Authors’ address

(1)

International Center for Ecology, Meteorology and Environment (IceMe), School of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044 (China)

(2)

CGCEO/Geography, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823 (USA)

(3)

Missouri Department of Conservation, Ellington, MO 63638 (USA)

(4)

USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Columbia, MO 65211 (USA)

Corresponding author

Jiquan Chen
jiquan.eco@gmail.com

Citation

Chen J, Xu J, Jensen R, Kabrick J (2015). Changes in aboveground biomass following alternative harvesting in oak-hickory forests in the eastern USA. iForest 8: 652-660. - doi: 10.3832/ifor1349-007

Academic Editor

Raffaele Lafortezza

Paper history

Received: May 12, 2014
Accepted: Nov 02, 2014

First online: Jan 13, 2015
Publication Date: Oct 01, 2015
Publication Time: 2.40 months

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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