Targeting Forest Conservation

Problem

Can nature-based solutions help us combat climate change?

• Forests in the United States have the potential to offset as much as 19 percent of annual fossil fuel emissions.
• Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide are outpacing the ability of oceans and forests to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Findings

In analyzing more than 23,000 trees from 565 plots on Pennsylvania's state forest and game lands, ecologists found that a forest's ability to store carbon depends significantly on the bedrock beneath. The study concluded that shale bedrock can make more water available to trees, which helps them grow faster.

• Two-thirds of the plots were on sandstone and the other third on shale, reflecting the bedrock ratio of the state's forestland.
• The team identified drivers of live forest carbon dynamics in relation to bedrock using a suite of GIS-derived landscape metrics.

Impact

Forest managers can now use the results of this study to make more informed decisions about where to target conservation to promote more effective carbon sequestration efforts.

• Forests growing on shale bedrock store 25 percent more live, aboveground carbon and can take up about 55 percent more carbon annually than forests growing over sandstone bedrock.

Related Research Area: Environmental Resilience

Research Credit

Team

• Margot Kaye, Warren Reed

Participating Departments

• Ecosystem Science and Management

Competitive Funding

• National Science Foundation (Susquehanna Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory)

Federal and State Appropriations

• USDA NIFA Hatch Project PEN04658, Accession #1016433

Emerging Discoveries

Bedrock type under forests greatly affects tree growth, species, carbon storage

June 10, 2020

A forest's ability to store carbon depends significantly on the bedrock beneath, according to Penn State researchers who studied forest productivity, composition and associated physical characteristics of rocks in the Appalachian ridge and Valley Region of Pennsylvania.

Task force created to significantly reduce Penn State's carbon emissions

September 03, 2021

A Carbon Emissions Reduction Task Force has been created to reconsider Penn State’s greenhouse gas emissions goal with a view toward setting a more aggressive target as well as a revised timeframe.

Published Research

Bedrock type drives forest carbon storage and uptake across the mid-Atlantic Appalachian Ridge and Valley, U.S.A. 

• Reed, W. P., & Kaye, M. W. (2020). Bedrock type drives forest carbon storage and uptake across the mid-Atlantic Appalachian Ridge and Valley, U.S.A. Forest Ecology and Management, 460, [117881]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2020.117881
  
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