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Wednesday, November 21, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
PNW woodlands less vulnerable than others in West
By Steve Lundeberg
Correspondent
CORVALLIS – Forests
in the Pacific Northwest will
be less vulnerable to drought
and fire over the next three
decades than those in the
Rocky Mountains and Sierra
Nevada, computer model-
ing by researchers in Oregon
State University’s College of
Forestry shows.
The findings, published
today in Global Change
Biology, represent an impor-
tant tool for scientists and
land managers because
woodlands throughout the
western United States are
under increasing stress from
accelerated rates of drought-
related mortality related to
global, human-caused cli-
mate change.
Also, the Northwest’s
hemlock, Douglas-fir and
redwood forests have tre-
mendous potential to coun-
teract climate change via
their carbon-sequestration
abilities, meaning policies
that promote stewardship of
those forests is critical, the
scientists say.
“Recent prolonged
droughts and catastrophic
wildfires in the West have
raised concerns about for-
est mortality and how that
might impact forest structure
and ecosystem services and
also the economic vitality of
nearby communities,” said
corresponding author Polly
Buotte of OSU’s Department
of Forest Ecosystems and
Society. “Forests in the West
support high species diversity
and some Pacific Northwest
forests are among the high-
est carbon-density forests on
Earth.”
Forests in the
West support high
species diversity and
some Pacific Northwest
forests are among the
highest carbon-density
forests on Earth.
— Polly Buotte
Buotte and College of
Forestry colleague Beverly
Law led a collaboration that
modeled 13 different major
forest types from around the
western United States, taking
into account climate condi-
tions and atmospheric carbon
dioxide levels over the next
30 years.
The model was high-res-
olution both from a spatial
standpoint – it broke forests
into grids of 16 square kilo-
meters – and also because
it looked at species-specific
responses to environmental
variables.
“The model calculated
multiple biophysical and
biogeochemical processes,
including surface heat fluxes,
photosynthesis, evaporation,
transpiration, carbon alloca-
tion to plant tissue, decompo-
sition and nitrogen cycling,”
Buotte said.
The researchers, who
also included David Rupp
of OSU’s College of Earth,
Ocean and Atmospheric
Sciences, developed metrics
of vulnerability to short-
term extreme and prolonged
drought.
“Projections show that
water-limited forests in the
Rockies, the Southwest and
the Great Basin will be the
most vulnerable to future
drought-related mortality,”
Buotte said. “We expect
vulnerability to future fires
will be highest in the Sierra
Nevada and portions of the
Rocky Mountains. Forests
along the Pacific coast and
western Cascades regions,
where there is ample rain,
are projected to be the least
vulnerable to either drought
or fire.”
Stress from drought
causes trees to shed leaves,
limiting their capacity
for photosynthesis; insect
infestations also make life
hard for drought-affected
trees.
“Our analyses indicate
strong potential for continued
levels of drought-related for-
est mortality in the southern
Rockies and in the Southwest
in the coming decades as
those forests are likely to suf-
fer from a changing climate,”
Buotte said.
The researchers stress that
there is a lot of spatial vari-
ability in future vulnerability.
And that fire vulnerability is
not the same as fire intensity.
“We do not imply that
areas labeled highly vul-
nerable will burn or that if
ignited they will burn with
high intensity, but they are
at greater risk in the coming
years than they have been
historically,” Buotte said.
The U.S. departments of
Agriculture and Energy sup-
ported this research.
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