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Canadian Forest Service
Forest Indicators of Global Change Project

Purpose:

To conduct a scientific field evaluation of new forest condition indicators across a Global Change gradient in eastern Canada.

How It Works:

Forest condition is influenced by a large number of interacting biotic, climatic, and soil-related factors, as well as by management intervention. Two factors of significance for eastern forests are climate change and air pollution. The Canadian Forest Service (CFS) Forest Indicators of Global Change Project (FIGCP) was established to:

1) develop new, early-warning indicators of forest condition; 2) investigate interactions between air pollution, climate change, and forest productivity; and 3) establish an array of permanent research-monitoring plots on which to conduct more detailed studies, particularly of nutrient/carbon cycling in eastern Canada. The FIGCP gradient of over 1800 km crosses four zones of acid deposition critical load exceedence, four of ozone critical level exceedence, a 2 - 7 °C variation of mean annual temperature, and a 700 - 1500 mm range mean annual precipitation.

Progress:

The Acid Rain National Early Warning System (ARNEWS) was established to examine acid deposition effects and the North American Maple Project (NAMP), sugar maple dieback. Meticulous observations of environmental influences (insects, disease, weather, pollutants), and forest response (crown condition, tree growth, mortality, regeneration, foliage, and soil chemistry) dating back to the mid-1980s resulted in a network of well-documented reference sites.

In 1998, 26 sites from Turkey Lakes, Ontario, to Fundy National Park, New Brunswick, supporting either adult sugar maple or adult conifers (white pine in the west, red spruce in the east), were selected for study. Eighteen were a subset of ARNEWS, and four a subset of NAMP. Four sites were added to fill geographical gaps. The sugar maple series (18 sites) and the conifer series (15 plots) were chosen to be as ecologically analogous as possible given the geographic extent.

Plot monitoring is continuing as before using ARNEWS protocols. Beginning in 1999, leaf surface studies were initiated on selected plots; passive ozone monitors were deployed and monitored across the gradient. With particular reference to carbon cycling, litter traps to monitor annual litterfall were deployed on selected plots; metabolic quotient evaluations involving measurement of microbial N and C and soil respiration were undertaken on plots in Quebec and will be extended across the Gradient; and a decomposition study involving sugar maple and white pine litters was established on the maple sites. Continuous temperature recorders to record forest floor temperature were also installed. Several university and provincial government agencies have joined as partners in the FIGCP, and more are expected as the project develops to include more indicators of soil condition and nutrient flux, the latter of which can be directly linked with existing critical loads mapping exercises mandated by the Eastern Canadian Premiers-New England Governors.

Contacts:

Kevin E. Percy
Canadian Forest Service-Atlantic Forestry Centre
P.O. Box 4000
Fredericton, New Brunswick
E3B 5P7
Telephone: 506-452-3524
E-mail: kpercy@nrcan.gc.ca