In each plot, we counted woody debris items, distinguishing between standing dead wood, fallen dead wood (including fallen branches) and hanging dead
wood. what are various method to calculate the the biomass of the deadwood biomass and litter. As these biomass is dead, it help the living trees indirectly but i want to know that can it help in carbon mitigation to global warming directly?
Dear ram Krishan
It is simply weighing. In the absence of the same, you can use the allometric equations. However, I am skeptical, that whether you will get volume equation for dead and dying species. What you can do, you can estimate the proportion of loss due to dying or dead tree with the estimated volume of tree as per allometric equations. You have to get volume by the equation and sample volume for some dead pieces. Pl see, may this work.
Rajiv
You need diameters of the woody pieces to convert to volume, then you apply specific gravity to convert to biomass. The most used methods are based on line transects, see http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_int/int_gtr016.pdf
For litter you can convert depth into load by applying bulk density, but you will 1st to establish a relationship between depth and load, which is species-specific.
dear Rajiv Pandey sir,
can you provide me the protocols for the calculation of deadwood biomass
regards
Ram Krishan