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Allometric Relationships for Predicting Aboveground Biomass and Sapwood Area of Oneseed Juniper (Juniperus monosperma) Trees
Across the semiarid ecosystems of the southwestern USA, there has been widespread encroachment of woody shrubs and trees including Juniperus species into former grasslands. Quantifying vegetation biomass in such ecosystems is important because semiarid ecosystems are thought to play an important rol...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7054341/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32174930 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2020.00094 |
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author | Cunliffe, Andrew M. McIntire, Cameron D. Boschetti, Fabio Sauer, Katherine J. Litvak, Marcy Anderson, Karen Brazier, Richard E. |
author_facet | Cunliffe, Andrew M. McIntire, Cameron D. Boschetti, Fabio Sauer, Katherine J. Litvak, Marcy Anderson, Karen Brazier, Richard E. |
author_sort | Cunliffe, Andrew M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Across the semiarid ecosystems of the southwestern USA, there has been widespread encroachment of woody shrubs and trees including Juniperus species into former grasslands. Quantifying vegetation biomass in such ecosystems is important because semiarid ecosystems are thought to play an important role in the global land carbon (C) sink, and changes in plant biomass also have implications for primary consumers and potential bioenergy feedstock. Oneseed juniper (Juniperus monosperma) is common in desert grasslands and pinyon–juniper rangelands across the intermountain region of southwestern North America; however, there is limited information about the aboveground biomass (AGB) and sapwood area (SWA) for this species, causing uncertainties in estimates of C stock and transpiration fluxes. In this study, we report on canopy area (CA), stem diameter, maximum height, and biomass measurements from J. monosperma trees sampled from central New Mexico. Dry biomass ranged between 0.4 kg and 625 kg, and cross-sectional SWA was measured on n = 200 stems using image analysis. We found a strong linear relationship between CA and AGB (r(2) = 0.96), with a similar slope to that observed in other juniper species, suggesting that this readily measured attribute is well suited for upscaling studies. There was a 9% bias between different approaches to measuring CA, indicating care should be taken to account for these differences to avoid systematic biases. We found equivalent stem diameter (ESD) was a strong predictor of biomass, but that existing allometric models underpredicted biomass in larger trees. We found SWA could be predicted from individual stem diameter with a power relationship, and that tree-level SWA should be estimated by summing the SWA predictions from individual stems rather than ESD. Our improved allometric models for J. monosperma support more accurate and robust measurements of C storage and transpiration fluxes in Juniperus-dominated ecosystems. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7054341 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-70543412020-03-13 Allometric Relationships for Predicting Aboveground Biomass and Sapwood Area of Oneseed Juniper (Juniperus monosperma) Trees Cunliffe, Andrew M. McIntire, Cameron D. Boschetti, Fabio Sauer, Katherine J. Litvak, Marcy Anderson, Karen Brazier, Richard E. Front Plant Sci Plant Science Across the semiarid ecosystems of the southwestern USA, there has been widespread encroachment of woody shrubs and trees including Juniperus species into former grasslands. Quantifying vegetation biomass in such ecosystems is important because semiarid ecosystems are thought to play an important role in the global land carbon (C) sink, and changes in plant biomass also have implications for primary consumers and potential bioenergy feedstock. Oneseed juniper (Juniperus monosperma) is common in desert grasslands and pinyon–juniper rangelands across the intermountain region of southwestern North America; however, there is limited information about the aboveground biomass (AGB) and sapwood area (SWA) for this species, causing uncertainties in estimates of C stock and transpiration fluxes. In this study, we report on canopy area (CA), stem diameter, maximum height, and biomass measurements from J. monosperma trees sampled from central New Mexico. Dry biomass ranged between 0.4 kg and 625 kg, and cross-sectional SWA was measured on n = 200 stems using image analysis. We found a strong linear relationship between CA and AGB (r(2) = 0.96), with a similar slope to that observed in other juniper species, suggesting that this readily measured attribute is well suited for upscaling studies. There was a 9% bias between different approaches to measuring CA, indicating care should be taken to account for these differences to avoid systematic biases. We found equivalent stem diameter (ESD) was a strong predictor of biomass, but that existing allometric models underpredicted biomass in larger trees. We found SWA could be predicted from individual stem diameter with a power relationship, and that tree-level SWA should be estimated by summing the SWA predictions from individual stems rather than ESD. Our improved allometric models for J. monosperma support more accurate and robust measurements of C storage and transpiration fluxes in Juniperus-dominated ecosystems. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-02-26 /pmc/articles/PMC7054341/ /pubmed/32174930 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2020.00094 Text en Copyright © 2020 Cunliffe, McIntire, Boschetti, Sauer, Litvak, Anderson and Brazier http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Plant Science Cunliffe, Andrew M. McIntire, Cameron D. Boschetti, Fabio Sauer, Katherine J. Litvak, Marcy Anderson, Karen Brazier, Richard E. Allometric Relationships for Predicting Aboveground Biomass and Sapwood Area of Oneseed Juniper (Juniperus monosperma) Trees |
title | Allometric Relationships for Predicting Aboveground Biomass and Sapwood Area of Oneseed Juniper (Juniperus monosperma) Trees |
title_full | Allometric Relationships for Predicting Aboveground Biomass and Sapwood Area of Oneseed Juniper (Juniperus monosperma) Trees |
title_fullStr | Allometric Relationships for Predicting Aboveground Biomass and Sapwood Area of Oneseed Juniper (Juniperus monosperma) Trees |
title_full_unstemmed | Allometric Relationships for Predicting Aboveground Biomass and Sapwood Area of Oneseed Juniper (Juniperus monosperma) Trees |
title_short | Allometric Relationships for Predicting Aboveground Biomass and Sapwood Area of Oneseed Juniper (Juniperus monosperma) Trees |
title_sort | allometric relationships for predicting aboveground biomass and sapwood area of oneseed juniper (juniperus monosperma) trees |
topic | Plant Science |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7054341/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32174930 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2020.00094 |
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