Recovery of Aboveground Plant Biomass and Productivity After Fire in Mesic and Dry Black Spruce Forests of Interior Alaska

Plant biomass accumulation and productivity are important determinants of ecosystem carbon (C) balance during post-fire succession. In boreal black spruce (Picea mariana) forests near Delta Junction, Alaska, we quantified aboveground plant biomass and net primary productivity (ANPP) for 4 years after a 1999 wildfire in a well-drained (dry) site, and also across a dry and a moderately well-drained (mesic) chronosequence of sites that varied in time since fire (2 to 116 years). Four years after fire, total biomass at the 1999 burn site had increased exponentially to 160 ± 21 g m-2 (mean ± 1SE) and vascular ANPP had recovered to 138 ± 32 g m-2 y-1, which was not different than that of a nearby unburned stand (160 ± 48 g m-2 y-1) that [...]