Higher aboveground carbon stock in edge forests: a study at stand and tree levels in boreal and temperate forests.

On a global scale, human activities have significantly fragmented forest landscapes, resulting in over 20 % of the remaining forests being located within 100 meters of an edge. Forests adjacent to disturbances experience edge effects that can affect aboveground carbon storage through changes in forest structure. Our main objective was to assess how aboveground carbon stocks respond in edge forests over a large bioclimatic gradient of upland sites across the temperate and boreal forests of Eastern Canada, using powerline rights-of-way as a case study. We quantified the carbon stocks contained in living and dead trees of all sizes and measured dendrometric and growth variables at the stand and tree levels in forests adjacent to powerline rights-of-way. Compared with control forests (> 50 m from right-of-way), aboveground carbon stocks in edge forests (