Date of Award:

5-2013

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Wildland Resources

Committee Chair(s)

Helga Van Miegroet

Committee

Helga Van Miegroet

Committee

James Long

Committee

Fred Baker

Committee

John Shaw

Committee

Janis Boettinger

Abstract

Our forests provide us with a variety of services from clean water, forest products and wildlife habitat to the lesser known functions of nutrient cycling and carbon
sequestration. This research helps to demonstrate the extent of some of these services in a heavily disturbed southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest within Great Smoky Mountain National Park, the most heavily visited National Park in the United States. Following a catastrophic infestation of the non-native balsam wooly adelgid, the future of this forest was unknown, causing some to speculate about the future of this sensitive forest type. Though predictions about this forest’s future varied widely from a full forest recovery to an extinction of tree species, direct measurements of forest conditions demonstrated that this forest is on a trajectory toward full recovery of structure and function of an intact forest. While these forests are recovering it was discovered that the understory is playing a critical role in keeping nutrients, such as nitrogen, on site and out of streamwater where they can contribute to water quality decline. We determined that active management of these forests can sequester more carbon in standing forest biomass and forest products and release less to the atmosphere where it can contribute to global climate change.

Checksum

6336cf3eec019eb2393a3c0164704b2b

Download

Share

COinS

Copyright for this work is retained by the student. If you have any questions regarding the inclusion of this work in the Digital Commons, please email us at .