Growth release and carbon storage of residual live trees in a mountain pine beetle (MPB) attacked lodgepole pine stand in northern British Columbia

Carbon (C) storage in residual live lodgepole pine trees in northern BC at Kennedy Siding was measured 11 and 12 years after a severe mountain pine beetle (MPB) epidemic. Kennedy Siding eddy covariance (EC) measurements showed that the net ecosystem productivity (NEP) was quick to recover C sink status. In this study, measurements of heights and diameters of 160 residual live lodgepole pine trees and a subset of 60 tree cores were used to calculate residual tree stem C-storage in 2017 and 2018 (36.01 and 26.71 g C m-2 yr-1 respectively). Dendrochronology analyses indicated that residual pine trees released on average 392% in the decade following versus the decade prior to MPB-attack. Stem C-storage was strongly and positively correlated with ECNEP measurements (R2=0.77) and percent downed canopy trees (R2=0.837), suggesting that growth release of residual trees was likely driven by improvements in resources (e.g. light, moisture, nutrient).