New aboveground biomass equations by components for small black spruce in peatland ecosystems of Western Canada

Abstract

Black spruce is the most common tree species in Canada, dominating treed peatlands where they are usually stunted. We used 495 destructively sampled trees from 56 plots to develop allometric models of aboveground biomass by components (stem, branches, and needles) for small (<5 m tall) black spruce from peatlands in the Taiga Plains and Boreal Plains Ecozones of Western Canada, for which there were no specific models available of biomass by components. We used leave-one-plot-out cross-validation to assess transferability and compare our models with existing national and ecozone-specific equations. Our models predicted total tree biomass with better accuracy and less biased estimates than the national model (relative RMSE: 30% versus 35% national; relative bias: +1% versus –12% national). Similar results were obtained in other external datasets. Existing ecozone equations performed worse than either our models or the national ones. When we applied the models at the plot level to predict aboveground biomass density (Mg·ha−1), our models outperformed the national model again (relative RMSE: 15.9% versus 18.6% national, relative bias: +3.5% versus –13.6% national). These results indicate that at least for peatlands of Western Canada, our models provide better aboveground biomass estimates for small black spruce trees than existing models.