Pattern and dynamics of biomass stock in old growth forests: The role of habitat and tree size

Abstract Forest ecosystems play a fundamental role in the global carbon cycle. However, how stand-level changes in tree age and structure influence biomass stock and dynamics in old-growth forests is a question that remains unclear. In this study, we quantified the aboveground biomass (AGB) standing stock, the coarse woody productivity (CWP), and the change in biomass over ten years (2004–2014) in a 25 ha unmanaged broad-leaved Korean pine mixed forest in northeastern China. In addition, we quantified how AGB stock and change (tree growth, recruitment and mortality) estimations are influenced by the variation in habitat heterogeneity, tree size structure and subplot size. Our analysis indicated that Changbai forest had AGB of 265.4 Mg ha −1 in 2004, and gained1.36 Mg ha −1  y −1 between 2004 and 2014. Despite recruitment having better performance in nutrient rich habitat, we found that there is a directional tree growth trend independent of habitat heterogeneity for available nutrients in this old growth forest. The observed increases in AGB stock (∼70%) are mainly attributed to the growth of intermediate size trees (30–70 cm DBH), indicating that this forest is still reaching its mature stage. Meanwhile, we indicated that biomass loss due to mortality reduces living biomass, not increment, may be the primary factor to affect forest biomass dynamics in this area. Also, spatial variation in forest dynamics is large for small sizes (i.e. coefficient of variation in 20 × 20 m subplots is 53.2%), and more than 90 percent of the inherent variability of these coefficients was predicted by a simple model including plot size. Our result provides a mean by which to estimate within-plot variability at a local scale before inferring any directional change in forest dynamics at a regional scale, and information about the variability of forest structure and dynamics are fundamental to design effective sampling strategies in future study.