Journal
ECOLOGY
Volume 96, Issue 1, Pages 31-38Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1890/14-0649.1
Keywords
biogeomorphology; biomass; ecological succession; erosion; landscape evolution; LiDAR; mixed-conifer forest; Sierra Nevada; topography
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Funding
- NERC [NERC DTG NE/152830X/1, NE/J500021/1, NE/I021217/1]
- University of Cambridge
- Natural Environment Research Council [1082630, NE/I021217/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- Directorate For Geosciences [1339015] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The physical characteristics of landscapes place fundamental constraints on vegetation growth and ecosystem function. In actively eroding landscapes, many of these characteristics are controlled by long-term erosion rates: increased erosion rates generate steeper topography and reduce the depth and extent of weathering, limiting moisture storage capacity and impacting nutrient availability. Despite the potentially important bottom-up control that erosion rates place on substrate characteristics, the relationship between the two is largely unexplored. We investigate spatial variations in aboveground biomass (AGB) across a structurally diverse mixed coniferous/deciduous forest with an order of magnitude erosion-rate gradient in the Northern Californian Sierra Nevada, USA, using high resolution LiDAR data and field plots. Mean basin slope, a proxy for erosion rate, accounts for 32% of variance in AGB within our field area (P < 0.001), considerably outweighing the effects of mean annual precipitation, temperature, and bedrock lithology. This highlights erosion rate as a potentially important, but hitherto unappreciated, control on AGB and forest structure.
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