Carbon Sequestration in Oak Woodlands
Tom Scott Environmental Science Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA, Earth Sciences, University of California, Riverside, CA, Oak Species in California: defining “Business as Usual” (BAU)
TAXA (three groups: red, white, and intermediate) COMMON NAME NARROW DISTRIBTUION
Quercus kelloggii Newb. BLACK OAK NO Quercus agrifolia agrifolia Nee COAST LIVE OAK YES Quercus agrifolia oxyadenia (COAST LIVE OAK) YES Quercus wislizeni A. DC. var. wislizeni INTERIOR LIVE OAK NO Quercus wislizeni var. frutescens Engelm. (INTERIOR LIVE OAK) NO Quercus peninsularis PENINSULAR OAK YES Quercus parvula Greene var. parvula SANTA CRUZ ISLAND OAK YES Quercus parvula var. shrevei (Muller) Nixon & Muller SHREVE OAK YES
Quercus chrysolepis Liebm. CANYON LIVE OAK NO Quercus vaccinifolia Kellogg HUCKLEBERRY OAK YES Quercus tomentella Engelm. ISLAND OAK YES Quercus palmeri (Quercus dunnii). PALMERS OAK NO Quercus cedrosensis CEDROS ISLAND OAK YES
Quercus sadleriana R. Brown, Campst. SADLER OAK YES Quercus engelmannii Greene ENGELMANN OAK YES Quercus lobata Nee VALLEY OAK NO Quercus douglasii H. & A. BLUE OAK YES Quercus garryana Dougl. var. garryana OREGON WHITE OAK NO Quercus garryana var. breweri Jeps. YES Quercus garryana var. semota YES Quercus dumosa Nutt. sensus stricto COASTAL SCRUB OAK YES Quercus berberidifolia Liebm SCRUB OAK NO Quercus john-tuckeri Nixon & Muller TUCKER’S SCRUB OAK YES Quercus pacifica Nixon & Muller PACIFIC OAK YES Quercus cornelius-mulleri Nixon & Steele MULLER OAK NO Quercus durata Jeps. var. Durata YES Quercus durata var. gabrielensis Nixon & Muller YES Quercus turbinella Greene ARIZONA SCRUB OAK NO Oak Growth-form Groups in California
RED OAKS INTERMEDIATE OAKS WHITE OAKS
Single Stem Trees Black Oak Engelmann Oak Coast Live Oak** Valley Oak Blue Oak
Multi-stem Trees Interior Live Oak Canyon Live Oak Shreve Oak Island oak Peninsular Oak (BC) Intermediate Arborescent shrubs Pacific oak Palmer’s Oak (AZ) Leather Huckleberry Oak Shrub Live Oak Shrubs Cedros Isl. Oak (BC) Sadler oak California, Tucker, Muller, Nuttall Scrub Oaks
Tree forms are critical component of biomass allocation and accumulation rates – and impact carbon sequestration
Q. agrifolia Q. wislizeni
Interior Live Oak Coast Live Oak Quercus wislizeni Quercus agrifolia Canyon Live Oak Quercus chrysolepis Oak Distribution overall:
Dominant over about 10 million acres of California wildlands
Oaks and closely related taxa (tan oak, beech, chinquapin)
Oaks Occupy a Transition Zone
Between forest and grass/shrub vegetation areas
Unpredictable (boom and bust) precipitation
Oaks persist because their biomass tracks precipitation
Right conditions:Standing age distributions suggest that oaks may recruit more often in wet cycles than dry cycles
70 30 60 JULIAN PALOMAR IDYLLWILD 50 RAMONA BOREGO BIGBEAR 40 RAMONA BOREGO PALM SPRNG
30 25
20
10
0 98-99 99-00 00-01 "01-02 "02-03 "03-04 "04-05 "05-06 "06-07 20
15 FREQUENCY (n) FREQUENCY
10
Frequency distribution in population 5
0 1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49 53 57 61 65 69 73 77 81 85 89 93 97 101 105 109 113 117 121 125 Years of age basedYEARS on AT annual DAH rings
Age class spikes coincide with years, troughs with drought years Beautiful weeds: red oak’s remarkable ability to recover when conditions are right
2003 1990 Delayed growth in oak seedlings: Rates of growth in slowest growing trees in plots at South Coast Field Station
700
600 1-4b 2-14a 3-13a 500 5-12b 6-4b 7-11b 400 9-1bn 9-5bs 9-7an 300 12-14b HEIGHT (cm) HEIGHT 15-8a 16-1as 200 16-4bs 16-13b 16-14b 100 averg top
0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 YEARS OF GROWTH Minimum oak generation time: Mast can occur after 3 to 5 years of growth in white oak (Q. engelmannii): acorns in 4 to 6 years after shoot emergence, masting after 5 to 7 years.
2000
18 0 0 ACORNS REPROD 16 0 0 MAST
14 0 0 AVERAGE
12 0 0
10 0 0
800
600
400
200
0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 YEARS OF GROWTH Oaks persistence in transitional landscapes because they can match their biomass to available resources, literally becoming smaller or larger match trends in conditions
Maximizing access to reliable water Accommodate reductions in biomass Resprout and rapidly grow after disturbance Mast acorns
Conifers maximize growth Oaks maximize persistence
Living Biomass Living Biomass Time Time
Adjusting to conditions: Oak Biomass is plastic
Reproductive Threshold
BIOMASS
SAS RG CS CD D
TIME
SAS = Acorn/Seedling stasis CD = Canopy decline RG = Rapid growth D = Death CS = Canopy Stasis PLASTICITY in VARY RATE OF oak biomass best ways BIOMASS CHANGE to frame VARY THE LENGTH AT LIFE STAGE BUSINESS AS USUAL OF LIFE STAGE conditions
G
COMPRESS OR EXPAND LIMITS OF BIOMASS OR AGE D Trunk diameter is a poor predictor of Coast Live Oak age
Diameter vs. Age Diameter vs. Annual ring growth 300 3
R² = 0.13566 R² = 0.69338
250 2.5
200 2
150 1.5
100 1
50 0.5
0 0 0.0 20.0 40.0 60.0 80.0 100.0 120.0 140.0 0.0 50.0 100.0 150.0
Conifers maximize growth Oaks maximize persistence
Living Biomass Living Biomass Time Time Conifer Forests
Sum the biomass of a stand of Stand biomass conifer trees, the product is a curve with predictable characteristics.
The sum of a series of logarithmic curves is still a
Living Biomass logarithmic curve
Time
Oaks woodlands
Sum the biomass of a stand of oak trees, the product is a complex curve that may be difficult to describe or model.
Stand biomass Sum of wavelets is (wavelets) lacks the we get a complex (polynomial) curve with peaks
Living Biomass and troughs
Time Enough idiosyncrasies among oak growth rates that it’s difficult to have confidence in global models. That forces us to create models empirically, at the stand or individual tree level to calculate carbon sequestration.
Table taken from USFS Climate Change Resource Center website, Carbon Estimation Tools: A Primer http://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/tools/carbon-primer (Table originally modified from Nick Skowronski, Climate Change Tools, NRS). Table taken from USFS Climate Change Resource Center website, Carbon Estimation Tools: A Primer http://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/tools/carbon-primer (Table originally modified from Nick Skowronski, Climate Change Tools, NRS). Models avail to calculate carbon sequestration at a project scale
Table taken from USFS Climate Change Resource Center website, Carbon Estimation Tools: A Primer http://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/tools/carbon-primer (Table originally modified from Nick Skowronski, Climate Change Tools, NRS). Carbon Sequestration Estimators for Hardwood Rangelands
Name Acronym Website
Carbon On Line Estimator COLE http://www.ncasi2.org/COLE/
Center for http://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/tools/cufr-tree-carbon-calculator- Urban Forestry Research CTCC ctcc Tree Carbon Calculator
Forest Vegetation Simulator FVS http://www.fs.fed.us/fmsc/fvs/
https://www.itreetools.org/eco/overview.php
Tools for Assessing and Demonstration with GIS: Managing Community i-TREES
Forests http://gis.amherstma.gov/data/springnearc2012/Session2 /Landscapes/Nearc2012Minnnis.pdf
Information on models from the USFS Climate Change Resource Center
COLLE TIME Acronym Notes CT SCALE OUTPUT needed DATA?
State-of-the-art software suite that provides urban TREE ecosystem services; i-TREE forestry analysis and benefits assessment tools. no to (Multiple Trees) Tree Carbon Calculator is the only tool approved by the Climate Action Reserve's Urban Forest Project TREE minima carbon sequestered CTCC Protocol for quantifying carbon dioxide to (Multiple Trees) FVS is a stand-level vegetation growth simulator - many variants for U.S. regions and applications. STAND FVS includes ecosystem and wood products carbon growth & yield; FVS yes (and groups of trees Retrieves Forest Inventory and Analysis data for user-selected domain and converts it to ecosystem REGIONAL carbon and produces carbon yield tables. (groups of FIA sites COLE Designed to calculate regional estimates; too few FIA no carbon; stocking among plots Individual-tree based models; estimating/ sampling biomass accumulation, And measuring/sampling oaks If you can’t group by site conditions or age since management or disturbance because of individual variation You still may be able to group by size classes and use stage-based models of oak demography, carbon calculation based on how many individuals will survive to the next age class, or persist in an age class: A = Acorn S = Seedling RG = Rapid growth CS = Canopy Stasis CD = Canopy decline IRD = Irreparable decline Individual-tree based models; estimating/ sampling biomass accumulation, And measuring/sampling oaks Reproductive Threshold BIOMASS SAS RG CS CD IRD TIME Business as usual (red line): oak planting in areas without oaks, or where oak have been removed/lost Reproductive Threshold BIOMASS TIME SAS = Acorn/Seedling stasis CD = Canopy decline RG = Rapid growth D = Death CS = Canopy Stasis Business as usual (red line): oak planting in areas without oaks or where oak have been removed/lost Reproductive Threshold BIOMASS TIME How can you estimate rate of carbon sequestration in reforestation/ aforestation projects? 1. Use CTCC Model for Coast Live Oak (Q. agrifolia) in some areas (eg., Inland Empire) and get an estimate based on the number of trees planted and the hypothetical growth rates. Also use iTree model for similar purpose. Justify deviations from model rules 2. Look to literature for: (a) Oak growth rates in California (Standiford, DeLasaux, Pilsbury) also Scott unpublished; (b) Carbon sequestration rates for oaks (USFS, California ARB, etc.); estimates of carbon content by wood, bark, branches roots, etc. (c) Climate and site factors affecting growth rates and sequestration rates Business as usual: stopping insect and pathogen damage Reproductive Threshold BIOMASS TIME SAS = Acorn/Seedling stasis CD = Canopy decline RG = Rapid growth D = Death CS = Canopy Stasis Business as usual: insect and pathogen damage Reproductive Threshold BIOMASS TIME Business as usual: insect and pathogen damage Reproductive Threshold BIOMASS TIME CONTAGION AND AMPLIFICATION: Lower these may change the rate or extent of biomass lost to insect and pathogen damage 250 200 Cameron Corners Corte Madera Ranch 150 Corte_Madera_Gate Descanso_One Johnson Ranch 1 Lyons_Valley_Ranch 100 Lower_Tullock Rudnick 50 0 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Fall of 2012: GSOB isn’t adept at dispersal Weir Canyon DEATH IN OAK SPECIES Business as usual: reducing biomass loss to fire Reproductive Threshold BIOMASS SAS RG CS CD D TIME SAS = Acorn/Seedling stasis CD = Canopy decline RG = Rapid growth D = Death CS = Canopy Stasis Business as usual: reducing biomass loss to fire Reproductive Threshold BIOMASS SAS RG CS CD D TIME SAS = Acorn/Seedling stasis CD = Canopy decline RG = Rapid growth D = Death CS = Canopy Stasis Biogeography of Red Oaks (Quercus section Lobatae) Q. kellloggii Q. agrifolia Eastern Red Oaks Q. wislizeni Southwestern Red Oaks Q. Emoyri Q. penninsularis Q. Viminea group Mexican Q. devia Red Oaks Q. brandegei Central American Red Oaks Possibly 5 to 10 millions years of isolation California is like no other place on earth Example: San Jacinto Mt has the greatest scarp in North America Red-breasted Nuthatch (North to Yukon ) Species disparity from the top of the mountain to the bottom (10 km) is equivalent to 2400 km Vermillion of transition across the Midwest Flycatcher (South to Equator)