Relationships between the stocking levels of live trees and dead tree attributes in forests of the United States

There has been little examination of the relationship between the stocking of live trees in forests and the associated attributes of dead tree resources which could inform large-scale efforts to estimate and manage deadwood resources. The goal of this study was to examine the relationships between the stocking of standing live trees and attributes of standing dead and downed dead trees using a national inventory of forests in the United States. Results indicated that from the lowest to the highest class of live tree relative stand density, the mean biomass/ha of live trees increased over 2000% while standing dead and downed dead trees biomass/ha increased 295 and 75%, respectively. Correlations between downed deadwood biomass and stand/site attributes increased as live tree stocking increased. The size/density attributes of standing and downed deadwood exhibited no relationship with standing live stocking possibly due to the confounding factors of decay and breakage. This study proposes a conceptual deadwood stocking model with standing live tree stocking as an axis along which deadwood accretion factors (e.g., disturbance, self-thinning, and senescence) and depletion factors (e.g., decay, harvest, and stagnation) ultimately determine deadwood stocking.