Chapter 15 Carbon Dynamics Following the Creation of Early Successional Habitats in Forests of the Central Hardwood Region

Abstract

Across a forested landscape, stand-level management actions or natural disturbances that create early successional habitats result in a short-term loss of carbon in any given stand, but are often offset by carbon gains in other, undisturbed stands. Standing carbon stocks and rates of sequestration vary with species, site productivity, stand age, and stand structure. The age distribution of forest stands has a particularly large effect on landscape-level carbon storage. Consequently, forest management activities, including creation of early successional habitats, have short-term implications for stand-level carbon storage, but their impact on forest- or landscapelevel carbon storage ultimately depends upon the temporal distribution and spatial scale of young forest stands on the landscape.

Keywords

early successional habitat, Central Hardwood Region, forest landscape, stand-level, carbon, carbon stocks, sequestration, carbon storage, temporal, spatial, distribution

Citation

Keyser, Tara L. 2011 Chapter 15 Carbon Dynamics Following the Creation of Early Successional Habitats in Forests of the Central Hardwood Region. In: C.H Greenberg et al. (eds.), Sustaining Young Forest Communities. Managing Forest Ecosystems 21, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1620-9_11, US Government 2011. page 271-287