1. Systematic Error Trends of Existing Crown Biomass Equations for the Major Commercial Conifers of the Inland Northwest Brian R. Turnquist M.S. Candidate University of Montana College of Forestry and Conservation

2. What kind of prediction equations are out there?  National, Regional, and Local  Tree and stand level  Predictions for tree-level component weights such as branches, foliage, stem, stem bark, etc.  Found in research papers, technical reports  Papers which act as compilations of many biomass equations  Jenkins et al. (2004), TerMikaelian & Korzukhin (1997)

3. Weight and Density of Crowns of Rocky Mountain Conifers Brown (1978)  Describes crown allometries for 11 species  Weighed the entire tree crown, and estimated component proportions  Used data from 2 previous studies (Storey (1955) & Fahnestock (1960))  Produced equations which use DBH, height, and crown ratio (these variables are sometimes log transformed)

4. National-Scale Biomass Estimators for United States Tree Species Jenkins et al. (2003)  Provides prediction equations for species groupings for use across the country  Trees were not sampled, rather a compilation of prediction equations was used  Pseudo-data was created, and regression equations produced

6. Methods

8. Analysis of differences between equation predictions and RBS estimates Positive differences = under-prediction Negative differences = over-prediction RBS field estimate Brown’s equation predictionJenkins’ equation prediction

9. Results Sampling Region

10. Site Conditions

11. Ponderosa Pine

13. Differences between equation predictions and RBS field estimates for ponderosa pine

14. Differences from Brown (1978) equation predictions LPPP WLDF

15. Differences between equation predictions and RBS field estimates for ponderosa pine

16. Differences from Jenkins (2003) equation predictions DF LP WL PP

17. Discussion

18. Differences in Crown and Stem Definitions Storey et al. (1955)

19. 2 lbs 12 lbs 12 inch

21. Conclusions  These equations are biased, and shouldn’t be used without these bias correction models  Some of the bias can be associated with a few differences in sampling methods, methods of equation creation  The amount of bias present could have immense impacts on management decisions  Creation of new equations for use in this region is an appropriate next step

22. Acknowledgments David Affleck John Goodburn INGY members Spokane Tribe of Indians Plum Creek Salish-Kootenai Tribes Coeur d’ alene Tribes Joint Fire Science Program Ryan, Jamie, Kagan, Eric, Jesse, Shane, Alex

23. RBS Sampling Schematic Stem Diameter 1 meter Branch Diameters x 1,0 x 1,1 x 1,2 x 1,3 x 1,4