Site preparation effects on growing season soil water regimes were investigated on three clearcut, grass-dominated sites in the Interior Douglas-fir (IDFdk), Montane Spruce (MSxk) and Engelmann spruce-Subalpine fir (ESSFxc) Biogeoclimatic Subzones, near Kamloops, British Columbia. The response of newly planted Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco) and lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl.) to these treatments was determined at the IDFdk site. Soil water regimes were measured in scalped, ripped and herbicide site preparation treatments and in an untreated control using a neutron moisture meter, a two-probe gamma-density gauge, tensiometers and thermocouple psychrometers. At the IDFdk, seedlings were spring planted in each of the treatments and control to determine whether microclimate modification by site preparation would improve seedling water relations, growth and survival during the first growing season. Root zone soil water content was most limited at the low-elevation site (IDFdk) and least limited at the high-elevation site (ESSFxc). The different site preparation treatments provided similar increases in root zone soil water content, profile water storage and drainage at each site. This resulted in substantial increases in soil water supply at the lowest two sites. Site preparation resulted in increased Douglas-fir and lodgepole pine stomatal conductance (gs), transpiration (E), leaf area, root egress, root collar basal area and dry matter production. Survival of both species was high in the control and in all site preparation treatments. Both species had similar seasonal patterns of gs and E in the control. In the site preparation treatments, lodgepole pine had greater gs, and by late summer, greater E than Douglas-fir. Although lodgepole pine had substantially higher twig xylem pressure potentials and lower soil-plant liquid flow resistances than Douglas-fir, both species appeared well adapted to survive drought. First growing season stomatal responses of both species to environmental conditions, including normalized vapor pressure deficit at seedling height (Ds/P), solar irradiance (Rs) and root zone extractable water (Φe), were similar when normalized against annual maximum conductance (gsmax ). A multiplicative model with non-linear least squares optimization (NLLS) of response functions to Rs, Ds/P and Φe provided a simple, reasonably accurate description of gs/gsmax for both species, and accounted for differences in gs between the control and ripped treatment. In most cases, the NLLS models developed for a given species and year resulted in relatively precise (R²>0.60) and unbiased estimates of gs /gsmax, and yielded estimates of mean daily stomatal conductance (Gs ) and total daily transpiration (T) within 20% of measured values, for the same species in other years. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate

<p dir="ltr">Forest ecosystems play a pivotal role in climate change mitigation. Sustainable forest management practices necessitate accurate quantification of forest aboveground carbon stocks (FACS). In the first part of this study, I compared the 13-year changes in FACS across three silvicultural systems, including even-aged management (EA), uneven-aged management (UEA), and non-harvested controls (NH), in Indiana's hardwood forests. Forest stands within each silvicultural system were assigned with one of the six treatment types, including clearcutting, shelterwood, or prescribed burning for EA, single-tree selection or patch cutting for UEA, or untreated controls. From 2008 to 2021, the FACS of the study area exhibited an increase from 91.5 ± 9.0 Mg/ha to 115.3 ± 2.1 Mg/ha. Single-tree selection, shelterwood, and prescribed burning were found to have minimal impacts on FACS. However, clearcutting and patch cutting resulted in a significant reduction in FACS, with subsequent recovery reaching only 30-37% of their pre-treatment levels after 13 years. Further investigations may use long-term inventory data to analyze the chronic recovery patterns on these sites.</p><p dir="ltr">In the second part of this study, I evaluated the feasibility of using 3DEP LiDAR in conjunction with the random forest algorithm for multiscale FACS prediction. It was found that the stand-scale model outperformed the plot-scale model, primarily due to a stand’s higher positioning accuracy and reduced boundary effects than the plot-scale model. This led to a reduction in RMSE from 25.43 Mg/ha (26%) to 16.74 Mg/ha (20%). Moreover, the stand-scale model exhibited robust landscape-level prediction performance even in scenarios where point density decreased from 7.7 points/m² to 2.0 points/m². However, the partitioned model including solely clearcut and patch sites produced a higher RMSE of 59% (17.82 Mg/ha) due to inaccurate LiDAR return classification and biased canopy height metrics extraction. Future research should delve into the mechanisms of point cloud classification to improve the FACS prediction accuracy for clearcut forest monitoring.</p><p dir="ltr">Overall, this thesis contributed to a deeper understanding of carbon dynamics in managed hardwood forests, highlighted the potential of using LiDAR technology for improved landscape-level carbon monitoring, and informed the decision-making processes in the context of climate change mitigation.</p><p><br></p>

The Mountain Hemlock (MH) zone includes all subalpine forests along British Columbia’s coast. It occurs at elevations where most precipitation falls as snow and the growing season is less than 4 months long. The zone includes the continuous forest of the forested subzones and the tree islands of the parkland subzones (Figure 1). Old-growth stands are populated by mountain hemlock, Pacific silver fir, and Alaska yellow-cedar, and are among the least-disturbed ecosystems in the world. Canopy trees grow slowly and are commonly older than 600 years, while some Alaska yellow-cedars may be up to 2000 years old. Early regeneration failures followed slashburning and the planting of unsuitable species. Currently, the most successful and feasible option for reforesting cutovers is natural regeneration with a mix of the three main tree species, but uncertainties remain about the temporal and spatial pattern of regeneration, changes in species composition, and the time required for stand establishment after cutting. Our study addressed these concerns by examining regeneration patterns on 6 sites that were clearcut 11-12 years prior to sampling and left to regenerate naturally. The sites were located at the lower limits of the zone in the Tetrahedron Range, near Sechelt, at elevations from 1060-1100m.