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- Title
Erosion rates as a potential bottom-up control of forest structural characteristics in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
- Authors
Milodowski, David T.; Mudd, Simon M.; Mitchard, Edward T. A.
- Abstract
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 erosionrate 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.
- Subjects
SIERRA Nevada (Calif. &; Nev.); PLANT ecology; SOIL erosion; CONIFEROUS forests; GEOGRAPHIC spatial analysis; WEATHERING; METEOROLOGICAL precipitation; LIDAR
- Publication
Ecology, 2015, Vol 96, Issue 1, p31
- ISSN
0012-9658
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1890/14-0649.1