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Life Sciences Commons

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Theses and Dissertations

Ecology

Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

2018

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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Forest Structural Complexity And Net Primary Production Resilience Across A Gradient Of Disturbance In A Great Lakes Ecosystem, Lisa T. Haber Jan 2018

Forest Structural Complexity And Net Primary Production Resilience Across A Gradient Of Disturbance In A Great Lakes Ecosystem, Lisa T. Haber

Theses and Dissertations

Forests are an important component of the global carbon (C) cycle and contribute to climate change mitigation through atmospheric C uptake and storage in biomass and soils. However, the forest C sink is susceptible to disturbance, which modifies physical and biological structure and limits spatial extent of forests. Unlike severe, stand-replacing disturbances that reset forest successional trajectories and may simplify ecosystem structure, moderate severity disturbances may instead introduce complexity in ways that sustain net primary production (NPP), leading to the phenomenon of “NPP resilience.” In this study, we examined the linkage between disturbance severity and ecosystem biological and physical structural …