Two forest management objectives being debated in the context of federally managed landscapes in the U.S. Pacific Northwest involve a perceived trade\uffe2\uff80\uff90off between fire restoration and carbon sequestration. The former strategy would reduce fuel (and therefore C) that has accumulated through a century of fire suppression and exclusion which has led to extreme fire risk in some areas. The latter strategy would manage forests for enhanced C sequestration as a method of reducing atmospheric CO2and associated threats from global climate change. We explored the trade\uffe2\uff80\uff90off between these two strategies by employing a forest ecosystem simulation model, STANDCARB, to examine the effects of fuel reduction on fire severity and the resulting long\uffe2\uff80\uff90term C dynamics among three Pacific Northwest ecosystems: the east Cascades ponderosa pine forests, the west Cascades western hemlock\uffe2\uff80\uff93Douglas\uffe2\uff80\uff90fir forests, and the Coast Range western hemlock\uffe2\uff80\uff93Sitka spruce forests. Our simulations indicate that fuel reduction treatments in these ecosystems consistently reduced fire severity. However, reducing the fraction by which C is lost in a wildfire requires the removal of a much greater amount of C, since most of the C stored in forest biomass (stem wood, branches, coarse woody debris) remains unconsumed even by high\uffe2\uff80\uff90severity wildfires. For this reason, all of the fuel reduction treatments simulated for the west Cascades and Coast Range ecosystems as well as most of the treatments simulated for the east Cascades resulted in a reduced mean stand C storage. One suggested method of compensating for such losses in C storage is to utilize C harvested in fuel reduction treatments as biofuels. Our analysis indicates that this will not be an effective strategy in the west Cascades and Coast Range over the next 100 years. We suggest that forest management plans aimed solely at ameliorating increases in atmospheric CO2should forgo fuel reduction treatments in these ecosystems, with the possible exception of some east Cascades ponderosa pine stands with uncharacteristic levels of understory fuel accumulation. Balancing a demand for maximal landscape C storage with the demand for reduced wildfire severity will likely require treatments to be applied strategically throughout the landscape rather than indiscriminately treating all stands.
", "keywords": ["Greenhouse Effect", "0106 biological sciences", "Bioelectric Energy Sources", "Forestry", "Carbon Dioxide", "15. Life on land", "16. Peace & justice", "Models", " Biological", "01 natural sciences", "7. Clean energy", "Carbon", "Fires", "Pseudotsuga", "Pinus ponderosa", "Oregon", "13. Climate action", "Computer Simulation", "Picea", "Ecosystem", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1890/08-0501.1"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Ecological%20Applications", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1890/08-0501.1", "name": "item", "description": "10.1890/08-0501.1", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1890/08-0501.1"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2009-04-01T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1890/09-0934.1", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-06-23T16:20:43Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2010-04-09", "title": "Carbon And Water Fluxes From Ponderosa Pine Forests Disturbed By Wildfire And Thinning", "description": "Disturbances alter ecosystem carbon dynamics, often by reducing carbon uptake and stocks. We compared the impact of two types of disturbances that represent the most likely future conditions of currently dense ponderosa pine forests of the southwestern United States: (1) high\uffe2\uff80\uff90intensity fire and (2) thinning, designed to reduce fire intensity. High\uffe2\uff80\uff90severity fire had a larger impact on ecosystem carbon uptake and storage than thinning. Total ecosystem carbon was 42% lower at the intensely burned site, 10 years after burning, than at the undisturbed site. Eddy covariance measurements over two years showed that the burned site was a net annual source of carbon to the atmosphere whereas the undisturbed site was a sink. Net primary production (NPP), evapotranspiration (ET), and water use efficiency were lower at the burned site than at the undisturbed site. In contrast, thinning decreased total ecosystem carbon by 18%, and changed the site from a carbon sink to a source in the first post\uffe2\uff80\uff90treatment year. Thinning also decreased ET, reduced the limitation of drought on carbon uptake during summer, and did not change water use efficiency. Both disturbances reduced ecosystem carbon uptake by decreasing gross primary production (55% by burning, 30% by thinning) more than total ecosystem respiration (TER; 33\uffe2\uff80\uff9347% by burning, 18% by thinning), and increased the contribution of soil carbon dioxide efflux to TER. The relationship between TER and temperature was not affected by either disturbance. Efforts to accurately estimate regional carbon budgets should consider impacts on carbon dynamics of both large disturbances, such as high\uffe2\uff80\uff90intensity fire, and the partial disturbance of thinning that is often used to prevent intense burning. Our results show that thinned forests of ponderosa pine in the southwestern United States are a desirable alternative to intensively burned forests to maintain carbon stocks and primary production.
", "keywords": ["Biometry", "QH301 Biology", "Cell Respiration", "Arizona", "Water", "Forestry", "Plant Transpiration", "Carbon Dioxide", "15. Life on land", "01 natural sciences", "Carbon", "Fires", "6. Clean water", "Pinus ponderosa", "Soil", "13. Climate action", "Biomass", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1890/09-0934.1"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Ecological%20Applications", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1890/09-0934.1", "name": "item", "description": "10.1890/09-0934.1", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1890/09-0934.1"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2010-04-01T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1890/15-0337", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "Closed Access", "updated": "2026-06-23T16:20:44Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2015-07-01", "title": "Restoring Forest Structure And Process Stabilizes Forest Carbon In Wildfire-Prone Southwestern Ponderosa Pine Forests", "description": "AbstractChanging climate and a legacy of fire\uffe2\uff80\uff90exclusion have increased the probability of high\uffe2\uff80\uff90severity wildfire, leading to an increased risk of forest carbon loss in ponderosa pine forests in the southwesternUSA. Efforts to reduce high\uffe2\uff80\uff90severity fire risk through forest thinning and prescribed burning require both the removal and emission of carbon from these forests, and any potential carbon benefits from treatment may depend on the occurrence of wildfire. We sought to determine how forest treatments alter the effects of stochastic wildfire events on the forest carbon balance. We modeled three treatments (control, thin\uffe2\uff80\uff90only, and thin and burn) with and without the occurrence of wildfire. We evaluated how two different probabilities of wildfire occurrence, 1% and 2% per year, might alter the carbon balance of treatments. In the absence of wildfire, we found that thinning and burning treatments initially reduced total ecosystem carbon (TEC) and increased net ecosystem carbon balance (NECB). In the presence of wildfire, the thin and burn treatmentTECsurpassed that of the control in year 40 at 2%/yr wildfire probability, and in year 51 at 1%/yr wildfire probability.NECBin the presence of wildfire showed a similar response to the no\uffe2\uff80\uff90wildfire scenarios: both thin\uffe2\uff80\uff90only and thin and burn treatments increased the C sink. Treatments increasedTECby reducing both mean wildfire severity and its variability. While the carbon balance of treatments may differ in more productive forest types, the carbon balance benefits from restoring forest structure and fire in southwestern ponderosa pine forests are clear.
", "keywords": ["0106 biological sciences", "13. Climate action", "Arizona", "Computer Simulation", "Forests", "15. Life on land", "Models", " Biological", "01 natural sciences", "Carbon", "Fires", "Pinus ponderosa", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0337"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Ecological%20Applications", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1890/15-0337", "name": "item", "description": "10.1890/15-0337", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1890/15-0337"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2015-07-01T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.5061/dryad.26d32", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"license": "unspecified", "updated": "2026-06-23T16:22:11Z", "type": "Dataset", "title": "Data from: A shady business: pine afforestation alters the primary controls on litter decomposition along a precipitation gradient in Patagonia, Argentina", "description": "unspecifiedOur understanding of the principal controls on litter decomposition is critical for our capacity to predict how global changes will impact terrestrial ecosystems. Although climate, litter quality and soil organisms clearly modulate carbon (C) and nutrient turnover, land-use change affecting plant species composition and structure can alter the relative importance of such controls. We took advantage of prior land-use changes of intentional planting of exotic forest species along a broad precipitation gradient [250\u20132200 mm mean annual precipitation (MAP)] in Patagonia, South America, where we established five paired sites in natural vegetation and adjacent 35-year-old pine plantations. We explored direct and interactive effects of precipitation and plant community structure on litter decomposition with in situ decomposition, common litters and reciprocal transplants, in addition to an evaluation of microenvironmental changes. Surface litter decomposition in natural vegetation (NV) was similar in all sites along the gradient, independent of litter quality, MAP or soil characteristics, while mass loss demonstrated a significant positive linear relationship with MAP in pine plantations (PP). Decomposition of common litters in PP was markedly reduced with respect to NV, which was > 50% faster at the arid extreme of the gradient. C:N ratios predicted decomposition only in PP, and differences in decomposition were highly correlated with impacts of vegetative cover on incident solar radiation. Synthesis. Concurrent changes in plant cover in NV with increasing MAP resulted in reduced incident solar radiation at the soil surface and decreased the relative importance of photodegradation as a control on surface mass loss. These changes eclipsed direct effects of water availability, litter quality and soil nutrients. In contrast, increased shade and recalcitrant litter with afforestation in PP sites combined such that photodegradation was entirely eliminated as a control and biotic decomposition was much reduced. While afforestation projects are promoted as a strategy to mitigate increased atmospheric carbon dioxide due to human activity, our results highlight that primary controls of litter decomposition were substantially altered with unexpected consequences for the C balance of these ecosystems.", "keywords": ["13. Climate action", "litter quality", "Carbon cycle", "15. Life on land", "photodegradation", "plant-climate interactions", "Lignin", "C:N ratio", "Pinus ponderosa", "organic matter"], "contacts": [{"organization": "Araujo, Patricia I., Austin, Amy T.,", "roles": ["creator"]}]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.26d32"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.5061/dryad.26d32", "name": "item", "description": "10.5061/dryad.26d32", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.5061/dryad.26d32"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2016-06-09T00:00:00Z"}}], "links": [{"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "This document as GeoJSON", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items?keywords=Pinus+Ponderosa&f=json", "hreflang": "en-US"}, {"rel": "alternate", "type": "text/html", "title": "This document as HTML", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items?keywords=Pinus+Ponderosa&f=html", "hreflang": "en-US"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection URL", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main", "hreflang": "en-US"}, {"type": "application/geo+json", "rel": "first", "title": "items (first)", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items?keywords=Pinus+Ponderosa&", "hreflang": "en-US"}, {"rel": "last", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "items (last)", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items?keywords=Pinus+Ponderosa&offset=10", "hreflang": "en-US"}], "numberMatched": 10, "numberReturned": 10, "distributedFeatures": [], "timeStamp": "2026-06-24T13:20:46.171858Z"}