Regional impacts of increasing fire frequency on carbon dynamics and species composition in the boreal forest, 2018-2021

The goal of this research is to quantify the potential for large-scale changes in carbon (C) sink strength, C stocks, and vegetation in boreal forests due to climate change and repeated wildfires by integrating mechanistic field and lab work with dynamic, spatially explicit landscape modeling. Working in central Alaska, the investigators will: 1) determine how fire frequency and climate change affect successional trajectories and above- and belowground C cycling, and 2) assess how the mechanisms that cause tipping points between vegetation types (i.e. conifer, hardwood, graminoid) and C sequestration (i.e. sink, source) vary spatially and temporally. The work will improve our understanding of how C cycling and species composition in boreal forests will respond to climate change and disturbances at the fine spatial scales critical to accurately project the future of the boreal forest. The US National Science Foundation (NSF) funded this work with award #1737166