by Andy T. Black⁽¹⁾, Phil Burton⁽²⁾, Andreas Christen⁽³⁾, Nicholas Coops⁽⁴⁾, Art Fredeen⁽⁵⁾, Dave L. Spittlehouse⁽⁶⁾, and J. A. Trofymow⁽²⁾

with scientific contributions by Mathew Brown⁽¹⁾,Carmen Emmel⁽³⁾, Vanessa Foord⁽⁶⁾,Nick Grant⁽¹⁾, Thomas Hilker⁽⁴⁾, Rick Ketler^(1,3), Dominic Lessard⁽¹⁾, Eugénie Paul-Limoges⁽³⁾, and Zoran Nesic⁽¹⁾.

⁽¹⁾ University of British Columbia, Faculty of Land and Food Systems.
⁽²⁾ Canadian Forest Servicee, Pacific Forestry Centre
⁽³⁾ University of British Columbia, Department of Geography.
⁽⁴⁾ University of British Columbia, Faculty of Forestry.
⁽⁵⁾ University of Northern British Columbia, Ecosystem Science and Management
⁽⁶⁾ BC Ministry of Forests and Range.

This NSERC Strategic Project brings together atmospheric scientists, ecophysiologists, and forest scientists from BC Universities, the Canadian Forest Service, and the BC Ministry of Forests and Range to assess the impact of different forest management strategies following Mountain Pine Beetle attacks on carbon emissions / sequestration, forest water balances and microclimates.

Development of the MPB attack at the 'Kennedy Siding' site. The green-attack stage describes the first year of attack (here in 2006), during which time a tree’s foliage remains green. During the second year of attack (2007), the red attack stage, the foliage senesces and turns red. Following the second year, the tree enters the grey attack stage and the needles turn brown and begin to fall (2008).

The current outbreak of mountain pine beetle in British Columbia which began in the late 1990’s, had killed a total of 710 million m³ of lodgepole pine by the end of 2007, and is predicted to kill 76% of the mature pine volume in the province by 2015. Although such epidemics have occurred in the past, none have been this large in areal extent or in duration. The size of the current epidemic is primarily due to the combination of an abundance of mature lodgepole pine and rising wintertime minimum temperatures for the past several years.

Management responses to MPB-attacked lodgepole pine stands vary from completely non-invasive strategies, i.e., allowing secondary structure (shrubs, pine seedlings and non-lodgepole pine species) to grow undisturbed in a decayed stand without (Case 1) and with existing secondary structure (Case 2) to selective removal of MPB-affected trees with varying degrees of secondary structure retention (stand formed by saplings, seedlings, and shrubs, Case 3), to complete removal of the stand (clear-cut, Case 4):

Selection of an appropriate response must balance the concern for the potential future economic viability of components of the SS, the desire to preserve habitat and ecosystem biodiversity, and the need to minimize disturbance of the local and regional energy, carbon and water balances. NEP measurements in a naturally regenerating stand that was harvested 10 years ago (Case 4). In this project, we directly measure carbon and water balances, ecophysiological changes and microclimates at four flux towers in a multi-year experiment. Each site is representing a case form 1 to 4 (see box on the right). A multi-level flux divergence experiment will be conducted to investigate the changes in microclimate and growth conditions within the canopies (radiation, temperature and wind regimes), and to identify the vertical distribution of sources, sinks and the exchange processes of sensible heat, water and carbon-dioxde in those forest stands. The current bias towards clearcut harvesting in mixed-species stands in the BC Interior reflects the realities of market demand for certain types of wood and paper products. However, the presence of significant secondary structure in many of the affected pine stands could provide opportunities for mid-term (15-30 years) timber harvest, provide habitat for wildlife and reduce run-off to rivers and streams if preserved during salvage-logging operations. Automated multi-angular spectro-radiometer (AMSPEC) system at Kennedy Siding. The use of remote sensing instruments and vegetation models calibrated against field measurements of ecosystem photosynthesis and decomposition allows the results of the study to be scaled from stand level to the landscape. At the stand level, automated multi-angular spectro-radiometer (AMSPEC) observations can be used to to analyse the interactions between canopy level reflectance and different stages of disturbance. For instance, AMSPEC allows comprehensive modeling of the bi-directional reflectance effects using high frequency multi-angular spectral observations. These models can help to identify key wavebands indicating different stages of canopy distrurbance due to Mountain Pine Beetle infestation. Airborne and spaceborne observations can then be applied to extrapolate the stand level findings across the landscape. Our long-term objective is to use models to enable the health assessment of residual forest ecosystems to be scaled from the stand-level to the regional scale.

We will determine the relative health and resiliency of MPB-affected forest ecosystems by measuring fluxes of carbon and water on towers above four residual forest ecosystems in salvage-logged and non-salvage-logged stands, and associated changes in stand-level biomass accumulation, evapotranspiration, and microclimate.

Experimental Sites

Multi-year measurements of the carbon, water and energy fluxes and budgets are made at four MPB-attacked and residual forest ecosystems in the central interior of BC.

Summit Lake Clearcut (Case 4) - This stand, located ~1 Km north of the Summit Lake tower, was salvage-logged of pine overstory and SS in 2009. A 3-m-tall, triangular tower will be installed in May 2010 and eddy covariance measurements will be made during the growing-season. Climate variables will be measured year round.

Data

Data Preview Graphs for 2010 MPB2 Campaign
Database codes for 2010 MPB2 Campaign

Acknowledgements

This research activity is funded / supported by:

NSERC Strategic Grant STPGP 365247 (2008, Black).

The following individuals and institutions contributed significantly to the success of this project: Andrea Pitacco, University of Padova, Italy, Environment Canada