Abstract
Charred biomass generated by wildland fire has attracted increased interest as a functional component of terrestrial ecosystems. Black carbon (C) in the form of char is a widespread but unique material contributing to biogeochemical processes including long-term carbon storage and soil productivity. These functions have long been recognized by the biogeochemical and soil sciences, but have so far received little attention from wildland fire science. Fire scientists conducting postfire biomass (or fuel) inventories have an opportunity to quantify the formation of char on woody material, which is important to quantifying interactions between fire and global C dynamics. In addition, failure to account for mass loss due to charring can result in overestimation of down wood biomass and decomposition (12 % to 233 % for particles up to 20 cm diameter). In this paper, we present computational methods that can be incorporated into standard planar intercept transects for estimating black C production and reducing overestimation bias for charred down woody detritus. Methodologies for quantifying black C production in other ecosystem pools are also discussed.
Highlights
Charred biomass generated by wildland fire (Figure 1) has attracted increased interest as a functional component of terrestrial ecosystems (Forbes et al 2006, Preston and Schmidt 2006, Lehmann 2007, DeLuca and Aplet 2008)
Black carbon (C) in the form of char is a unique material contributing to biogeochemical dynamics, to longterm carbon storage and soil productivity (Lehmann 2007, DeLuca and Aplet 2008)
Fire scientists conducting postfire biomass inventories have an opportunity to quantify the formation of char on woody material, which may become increasingly important with heightened attention to interactions between fire, C dynamics, and climate (e.g., Schmidt and Noack 2000, Campbell et al 2007)
Summary
Charred biomass generated by wildland fire (Figure 1) has attracted increased interest as a functional component of terrestrial ecosystems (Forbes et al 2006, Preston and Schmidt 2006, Lehmann 2007, DeLuca and Aplet 2008). Fire scientists conducting postfire biomass (or fuel) inventories have an opportunity to quantify the formation of char on woody material, which may become increasingly important with heightened attention to interactions between fire, C dynamics, and climate (e.g., Schmidt and Noack 2000, Campbell et al 2007). Woody material charred but not consumed has lost a large fraction of its mass, commonly estimated at ~70 % loss (Czimczik et al 2002, Dietenberger 2002). If this loss is not taken into account, standard calculations based on field-measured diameters can result in significant overestimation of mass for certain fuel timelag (size) classes. Approaches to measuring black C in other ecosystem pools are discussed
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