Michael G. Ryan Laboratory for Studies of the Forest Carbon Cycle USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station 240 West Prospect Road Fort Collins, CO 80526-2098 970.498.1012(phone) 970.498.1010(fax) mgryan@fs.fed.us

Research	Forests and long-lived wood products currently offset 310 million metric tons of US fossil fuel emissions of carbon—12-20% of the total. This is an enormous ecosystem service, as Jackson and Schlesinger (2004) estimate that it would require converting one-third of our current US cropland to forest plantations to offset another 10% of emissions. Large forested landscapes over long periods of time should have a carbon balance of near zero (Kashian et al. 2006). Our large carbon sink today results because past harvesting released much CO2 into the atmosphere and the regrowing forest is recovering that CO2 (Birdsey et al. 2006). Nitrogen deposition and increased atmospheric carbon dioxide can make forests grow more and are higher than in the past. They might also contribute to today's forest carbon sink (Canadell et al. 2007). The persistence of this forest carbon sink is a concern, because the processes promoting the sink should taper off, while projected increases in disturbance rates, such as fires, may mobilize current carbon stocks (Canadell et al. 2007). We understand the carbon value of keeping forests as forests, of planting forests where none existed historically (afforestation), for replanting forests where they were historically (reforestation), using forest biomass as fuel, and storing carbon in long-lived products. However, several issues remain to be solved: 1) biophysical limits on storage and a complete accounting of the global warming budget of forests; 2) the lifespan of storage (including disturbances of all kinds, and market pressures that will determine whether to harvest or not), and 3) accounting of storage and the displacement of carbon loss to other areas. The Laboratory for Studies of the Forest Carbon Cycle aims to understand the processes that regulate the productivity, accumulation, decay, and storage of carbon in forests at scales from the individual tree to the landscape. A Primer on Forests and the Carbon Cycle can be found here.	Mike Ryan sampling leaf respiration in Brazil
Publications
Seminars
EY693 Research Methods
F510 Ecophysiology
Graduate Advising Prospectus
People
Kayaking
CV	New Publications Bradford JB, P Weishampel, M-L Smith, R Kolka, RA Birdsey, SV Ollinger, MG Ryan.  2009.  Detrital carbon pools in temperate forests: magnitude and potential for landscape-scale assessment.  Canadian Journal of Forest Research 39: 802-813. Smithwick EAH, DM Kashian, MG Ryan and MG Turner. 2009. Long-term ecosystem nitrogen storage and soil nitrogen availability in post-fire lodgepole pine ecosystems. Ecosystems: 535-548. Butnor JY, ML Pruyn, DC Shaw, ME Harmon, AN Mucciardi and MG Ryan. In Press. Detecting defects in conifers with ground penetrating radar. Forest Pathology, Oct 2008. Smithwick EAH, MG Ryan, DM Kashian, WH Romme, DB Tinker and MG Turner. 2009. Modeling the effects of fire and climate change on carbon and nitrogen storage in lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) stands. Global Change Biology 15: 535-548. Bradford JB, RA Birdsey, LA Joyce and MG Ryan. 2008. Tree age, disturbance history, and carbon stocks and fluxes in subalpine Rocky Mountain forests. Global Change Biology 14: 2882–2897. Ryan MG, D Binkley and JL Stape. 2008. Why don’t our stands grow even faster? Control of production and carbon cycling in eucalypt plantations. Southern Forests 70: 99-104. Ryan MG, SR Archer, RA Birdsey, CN Dahm, LS Heath, JA Hicke, DY Hollinger, TE Huxman, GS Okin, R Oren, JT Randerson, WH Schlesinger, 2008. Land Resources. In: The effects of climate change on agriculture, land resources, water resources, and biodiversity. A Report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research. Washington, DC, USA, 362 pp. Sherrill KR, MA Lefsky, JB Bradford and MG Ryan 2008. Forest structure estimation and pattern exploration from discrete return lidar in subalpine forests of the central Rockies. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 38:2081-2096. Allen Best Article ‘Carbon Conundrum’ in Forest Magazine that quotes Mike Ryan.
Forest Service Position Description

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