Pierre Bernier

• Ph.D. Forest hydrology
• Researcher at Natural Resources Canada

Accurate and fine-scale forest data are essential to improve natural resource management, particularly in the face of climate change. Here, we present SCANFI, the Spatialized CAnadian National Forest Inventory, which provides coherent, 30 m resolution 2020 wall-to-wall maps of forest attributes (land cover type, canopy height, crown closure, aboveg...

In Canada, recent fire seasons have demonstrated the threat of wildland fire in the wildland–human interface (WHI) areas, where forest fuels intermingle with or abut housing, industry, and infrastructure. Although fire activity is expected to increase further in the coming decades as a result of climate change, no WHI-specific estimates of wildland...

Burn severity is an important component of the fire regime that has not yet been fully characterized for the forests of Canada. The objectives of this study were to (i) create a Canada-wide geospatial database of burn severity for wildland fires across forested regions of Canada from 1985 to 2015, and (ii) use this database to evaluate seasonal and...

The article describes the development of the web-based Canadian Forest Service climate change indicator system, referred to as the Forest Change Tracking System. This indicator system was established in 2011 with financial support from the Adaptation theme of the Government of Canada Clean Air Agenda. The objectives of the Forest Change Tracking Sy...

Core Ideas Total ecosystem carbon recovered to pre‐harvest levels after seven decades. Predicted and observed carbon pools differed most for deadwood and soil. Modified CBM‐CFS3 initialization and default decay parameters may improve accuracy. Climate change and global wood products demand raise concerns about boreal forest ecosystem resilience to...

Currently, wood and wood construction materials have limitations in how carbon fluxes are accounted for in life cycle assessments. The biogenic carbon balance of wood is often considered to be neutral, meaning that the carbon sequestered by biomass through photosynthesis is considered equal to the carbon feedstock in wood that is eventually release...

There is a growing interest in using logging residues as feedstock in the bioeconomy. Quantifying the amount of this resource over large areas has been difficult due to the lack of availability of and consistency in forest inventory data across jurisdictions and the lack of a clear definition of what constitutes logging residues. The goal of this s...

Canada's forests are shaped by disturbances such as fire, insect outbreaks and droughts that often overlap in time and space. The resulting cumulative disturbance risks and potential impacts on forests are generally not well accounted for by models used to predict future impacts of disturbances on forest. This study aims at projecting future cumula...

A recent global study reported a net difference between areas of forest cover loss and of forest cover gain of about 3.6% of total forest area across the boreal biome, and of 5.6% for Canada, over a 12-yr period. Net losses of this magnitude should be of concern given the importance of this biome in global biogeochemical cycles linked to climate ch...

Climate change could increase fire risk across most of the managed boreal forest. Decreasing this risk by increasing the proportion of broad-leaved tree species is an overlooked mitigation–adaption strategy with multiple benefits.

Mapping Canada’s forests is a significant challenge given their extent and the interprovincial differences in forest inventories. We created new sets of nationally consistent forest attribute maps for the years 2001 and 2011 by building upon previously published work with the objective to determine if sequential maps of forest attributes could be u...

Accurate estimation of aboveground biomass (AGB) using remote sensing data is still challenging and an approach based on an understanding of forest disturbance and succession could help improve AGB estimation. In the boreal forest of North America, time since last fire (TSLF) is seen as a useful variable to explain post-fire successional change and...

The ongoing debate about costs and benefits of wood-pellet based bioenergy production in the southeastern United States (SE US) requires an understanding of the science and context influencing market decisions associated with its sustainability. Production of pellets has garnered much attention as US exports have grown from negligible amounts in th...

Forest fire activity is projected to increase with climate change in Canada, but vegetation feedbacks are usually not considered. Using new information on the selectivity or avoidance of fire as a function of stand age and composition, we ran simple simulation models that consider the changes in the regional age matrices induced by fire and harvest...

Strategies for increasing the mobilization of forest biomass supply chains for bioenergy production require continuous assessments of the spatial and temporal availability of biomass feedstock. Using remote sensing products at a 250-m pixel resolution, estimates of theoretical biomass availability from harvest residues and fire-killed trees were co...

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been reporting country-level area in primary forests in its Global Forest Resource Assessment (FRA) since 2005. The FAO definition of a primary forest (naturally regenerated forest of native species where there are no clearly visible indications of human activities and the ecological pr...

This dataset contains measurements of height, diameter and biomass for nearly 9,500 trees of various species taken across Canada in the early 1980’s as part of a national program on forest biomass and bioenergy (ENFOR) led by the Canadian Forest Service. The dataset was subsequently recovered and used by Ung and colleagues to produce the Canadian b...

Fire is a dominant mechanism of forest renewal in most of Canada's forests and its activity is predicted to increase over the coming decades. Individual fire events have been considered to be non-selective with regards to forest properties, but evidence now suggests otherwise. Our objective was therefore to quantify the effect of forest properties...

Accurately assessing the delay before the substitution of fossil fuel by forest bioenergy starts having a net beneficial impact on atmospheric CO2 is becoming important as the cost of delaying GHG emission reductions is increasingly being recognised. We documented the time to carbon (C) parity of forest bioenergy sourced from different feedstocks (...

Surface albedo is an important physical property by which the land surface regulates climate. A wide and growing body of literature suggests that failing to account for surface albedo can result in suboptimal or even counterproductive climate-motivated policies of the land-based sectors. As such, albedo changes are increasingly included in climate...

An increasing number of studies conclude that water limitations and heat stress may hinder the capacity of black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) trees, a dominant species of Canada's boreal forests, to grow and assimilate atmospheric carbon. However, there is currently no scientific consensus on the future of these forests over the next centu...

The boreal forest, one of the largest biomes on Earth, provides ecosystem services that benefit society at levels ranging from local to global. Currently, about two-thirds of the area covered by this biome is under some form of management, mostly for wood production. Services such as climate regulation are also provided by both the unmanaged and ma...

As evidence points to the importance of climate change (CC) impacts on forests, it is critical to understand how forestry and forest-dependent communities will be affected. People active in the Quebec forest sector were consulted about their perceptions on the most important potential impacts and adaptation measures. Preoccupations covered many asp...

Fire plays an important role for boreal forest succession, and time since last fire (TSLF) is therefore seen as a useful covariate to devise forest management strategies, but TSLF information is currently either spatially or temporarily limited. We therefore developed a TSLF map for an extensive region in eastern Canada (217,000 km 2) by generalizi...

The frequency of forest fires is predicted to increase in Canada, which may affect the availability of timber for industrial purposes. We therefore carried out an evaluation of the timber supply vulnerability to current and future fire risk through simplified calculations involving historical forest growth and harvest rates and current and projecte...

Fire is an important driver of boreal succession dynamics and time since last fire (TSLF) is seen as a useful variable to explain successional change and subsequently carbon (C) storage. Over very large spatial extents (> 105 km 2), reflectance data from remote sensing instruments such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) or...

Inherent variability in the spectral properties of boreal forests complicates the retrieval of canopy properties such as canopy leaf area index from satellite images. Understanding the drivers of this variability could help provide better estimates of desired canopy cover properties. Field plot data from the Finnish National Forest Inventory and La...

Tree improvement programs aim to develop families that are well-adapted to future growing conditions. To gain insight into the stability of the family genetic response to climate change, white spruce (Picea glauca) seedlings from 60 full-sib families were subjected to a combination of two temperature regimes and two levels of CO2 over two growing s...

Ecosystem-based management (EBM) of forests is gaining acceptance for its focus on the maintenance of the long-term integrity ecosystem processes, but climate change challenges this view because of its impacts on these very processes. We have therefore evaluated the robustness of ecosystem-based management (EBM) to projected climate change, conside...

Disturbances such as fire and harvesting shape forest dynamics and must be accounted for when modelling forest properties. However, acquiring timely disturbance information for all of Canada’s large forest area has always been challenging. Therefore, we developed an approach to detect annual forest change resulting from fire, harvesting, or floodin...

In existing carbon budget models, carbon stocks are not explicitly related to forest successional dynamics and environmental factors. Yet, time since last fire (TSLF) is an important variable to explain successional change and subsequently carbon storage. The objective of this study was to develop a hybrid modelling approach based on the knowledge...

Climate change is affecting Canada’s boreal zone, which includes most of the country’s managed forests. The impacts of climate change in this zone are expected to be pervasive and will require adaptation of Canada’s forest management system. This paper reviews potential climate change adaptation actions and strategies for the forest management syst...

Background/Question/Methods Fire plays an important role for boreal forest succession and time since last fire (TSLF) is seen as a useful covariate to infer the spatial distribution of carbon over a large regional scale. Current methods employed to provide TSLF are either spatially or temporarily limited. Forest composition and structure may prov...

It is acknowledged that natural forest fires cannot and even should not be eliminated from the North American boreal forest. Forest fires produce immediate losses of wood volume, disrupt the conversion of the actual forest age structure into a target structure, and prevent planned timber supply (PTS) levels from being achieved. In this paper, we ex...

In this study latent heat flux (λE) measurements made at 65 boreal and arctic eddy-covariance (EC) sites were analyses by using the Penman-Monteith equation. Sites were stratified into 9 different ecosystem types: harvested and burnt forest areas, pine forests, spruce or fir forests, Douglas-fir forests, broadleaf deciduous forests, larch forests,...

Canada’s National Forest Inventory (NFI) sampling program is designed to support reporting on forests at the national scale. On the other hand, continuous maps of forest attributes are required to support strategic analyses of regional policy and management issues. We have therefore produced maps covering 4.03 × 10⁶ km² of inventoried forest area f...

In arid zones, the use of compost for plant production in forest nurseries is hindered by a lack of water. The main objectives of this study were (1) to evaluate the physical stability of composts produced from shredded branches of Acacia cyanophylla and A. cyclops subjected to a repeated drying and wetting cycles, similar to those used at the oper...

The 20th century was a pivotal period at high northern latitudes as it marked the onset of rapid climatic warming brought on by major anthropogenic changes in global atmospheric composition. In parallel, Arctic sea ice extent has been decreasing over the period of available satellite data records. Here, we document how these changes influenced vege...

The growing demand for bioenergy feedstock from forest harvest residues is generating concerns about the potential loss of site productivity through nutrient removal. We used tree-level national biomass equations and a national database of forest plots to develop stand-level biomass equations for the different tree components of 30 major forest tre...

Weather effects on forest productivity are not normally represented in inventory-based models for carbon accounting. To represent these effects, a meta-analysis was conducted on modeling results of five process models (ecosys, CN-CLASS, Can-IBIS, InTEC and TRIPLEX) as applied to a 6275 ha boreal forest landscape in Eastern Canada. Process model res...

Canada's territory holds 10% of the world's forest, mostly in high-latitude areas with a dominance of conifers and with snowy winters. Changes in disturbance regimes and in climate may change both the extent and duration of the snow cover as well as the type and properties of the forest cover, thereby providing either negative or positive feedback...

Forest bioenergy opportunities may be hindered by a long greenhouse gas (GHG) payback time. Estimating this payback time requires the quantification of forest-atmosphere carbon exchanges, usually through process-based simulation models. Such models are prone to large uncertainties, especially over long-term carbon fluxes from dead organic matter po...

C Boisvenue*(1), Y Bergeron(2), P Bernier(3) & C Peng(4) Background: Forests have become a focal point of climate change mitigation and adaptation, and of tradable credit systems, due to their carbon storage potential. But are the objectives evolving from climate-responsible stewardship and environmental certification conflicting? Results: We prese...

Proper management and accounting of forest carbon requires good knowledge of how disturbances and climate affect the carbon dynamics of different stand types. We have investigated such relationships by measuring, over a 5-year period (2003–2007), the net ecosystem productivity (NEP), gross ecosystem productivity (GEP) and ecosystem respiration (ER)...

Disturbances control the landscape-level C dynamics of boreal forests, but post-disturbance C dynamics are usually poorly quantified. In the current study, we use 10 years of CO2 flux measurements at a boreal black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) cutover in eastern Canada to estimate time to C neutrality, quantify the relative role of respira...

In spite of the many factors that are occurring and known for positively affecting the growth of forests, some boreal forests across North America have recently felt the adverse impacts of environmental changes. Knowledge of causes for productivity declines in North American boreal forests remains limited, and this is owed to the large spatial and...

We have investigated the radiative forcing caused by natural deforestation in Canada's Eastern boreal forest. In this region, repeated forest fires can cause a change from closed-canopy coniferous forests to lichen woodlands of various residual forest cover densities. We used albedo estimates from MODIS imagery, incoming solar radiation measuremen...

Canada's boreal forest resources are coming under increasing pressure from competing land-uses, including establishment of protected areas, and losses of harvestable forest to mining and oil and gas exploration. In the prairie region, concerns about lack of wood supply for pulpmills and potential opportunities for bioenergy production and carbon se...

The rising global temperature will likely affect ecological processes but the extent and direction of these responses are uncertain. To reduce this uncertainty, we evaluated the environmental controls over fine root dynamics in balsam fir (Abies balsamea (L.) Mill.). Fine root production was measured over 5 years at two balsam fir sites in the sout...

In spite of the many factors that are occurring and known for positively affecting the growth of forests, some boreal forests across North America have recently felt the adverse impacts of environmental changes. Knowledge of causes for productivity declines in North American boreal forests remains limited and this is owed to the large spatial and t...

• Context Root growth is a characteristic to which nursery personnel is particularly attentive. The increase in root growth of white spruce seedlings in the autumn relies on the current season’s photosynthates. Needle hardening or a decrease in the mass of photosynthetically active foliage as a result of early frost may negatively affect the seedli...

The forest soils of Canada contain large amounts of carbon and its dynamics is one of the key areas of uncertainty in the carbon balance of North America. While estimates of total soil carbon stocks are available, the relative role of soil organic matter (SOM) quality from that of environmental conditions in maintaining these C reservoirs is poorly...

Spatially and temporally distributed information on the sizes of biomass carbon (C) pools (BCPs) and soil C pools (SCPs) is vital for improving our understanding of biosphere–atmosphere C fluxes. Because the sizes of C pools result from the integrated effects of primary production, age-effects, changes in climate, atmospheric CO2 concentration, N d...

There is a growing interest in using forest biomass as an energy source. The main objectives of this paper are to give some figures and perspectives on Canadian forest biomass supply with respect to Canada's energy demand and to examine the potential of using this feedstock for reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Published estimates of for...

There is a growing interest in using forest biomass as an energy source. The main objectives of this paper are to give some figures and perspectives on Canadian forest biomass supply with respect to Canada's energy demand and to examine the potential of using this feedstock for reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Published estimates of for...

Because of successive forest fires, closed-canopy black spruce forests are susceptible to a shift towards open lichen–spruce woodlands in parts of the boreal forest of eastern North America. The shift from dark black spruce canopies to pale lichen ground cover offers a dramatic contrast in reflectance that may compensate for the CO2 emissions from...

Wildfire activity has been decreasing over the past few centuries across North America's southeastern boreal forest. This change has caused a gradual shift in the age-class distribution toward a stronger representation of old-growth stands (age > 140 years) in unmanaged forest landscapes. Parallel to these changes, there has been a steady improveme...

A combined winter chilling and spring warming model is presented for predicting the date for the onset of foliation of sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) trees. The model is calibrated using both local data obtained in two sugar maple stands during two consecutive years with contrasting foliation dates and data obtained from the literature and cho...

A tree-level process-based model of forest growth is used to investigate the effects of thinning on the growth of balsam fir (Abies balsamea (L.) Mill.) in stands that have almost reached commercial maturity but that have never been thinned. The model is applied to predict the 20-year growth of a stand following a recently established thinning expe...

Aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) was measured in three balsam fir (Abies balsamea (L.) Mill.) forests on a climatic transect extending from southern New Brunswick ("warm" study area) to central Quebec ("cool" study area). Annual foliar production was estimated with a relationship between cross-sectional area at breast height of the curre...

Allocation of carbon for the production of fine roots is a significant component of the carbon budget within trees. Transformation of fine-root volumes or lengths as seen with minirhizotrons into fine-root mass per unit of horizontal area requires an estimate of the mass density or specific root length of fine roots for the species of interest. We...

It has already been shown that a relation exists between the daily rate of spring sap flow and the twig temperature of sugar maple. The authors first develop a method to calculate this temperature from radiation, wind speed, and air temperature. For each sap flow cycle, the values of four factors controlling the phenomenon are determined: the numbe...

Incidence of western gall rust infection in each of 10 replicated forest openings having diameter height ratios of 2:1, 4:1, and 6:1 was determined along two perpendicular 1-m wide transects. Infection frequencies were not significantly different among the different-sized openings. No pine regeneration was present in openings with diameter:height r...

A survey carried out in 13-year-old circular openings of 1, 2, 4, and 6 tree heights (H) in diameter, in a 1H east–west strip, and in a 20-ha clear-cut of similar ages shows that regeneration of lodgepole pine (Pinuscontorta Dougl. var. latifolia Engelm.) in the 4H and 6H cuts is comparable with that of the larger clear-cut. Regeneration is poor in...

Wind speed and snow evaporation were measured in a small artificial stand of 2.5-m lodgepole pines and in an adjacent field during the winter of 1987. Stand densities of 2500, 1650, and 800 stems/ha were obtained through periodic removal of trees. The reduction of wind speed brought about by the trees is a linear function of , the angle of view fro...

Insitu snow evaporation was measured in circular openings, from 0H (full forest) to 5H (where H is the height of the surrounding trees; approximately 20 m), cut in the lodgepole pine (Pinuscontorta Dougl.) forest of the Alberta Foothills. Additional measurements were also made in a large 40H irregular clearing. The ratios of snow evaporation measur...

The acclimation of planted black spruce (Piceamariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) seedlings to site nutrient condition was assessed by comparing their nutrient status with that of naturally regenerated seedlings on the same site during a 2-year period. The seasonal patterns for N, P, and K status (nutrient concentration and content) were markedly different for...

Weekly values of water relations parameters of four black spruce (Piceamariana (Mill.) B.S.P) populations growing in a common garden north of Québec City were obtained by pressure–volume curve analysis from mid-May to mid-October 1991. Two of the four populations originated from the province of Quebec, and two were from Ontario. Within each geograp...

Black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) BSP) seedlings were planted on eight drained forested wetland cutblocks to study the effects of soil type, distance from drainage ditch, and microtopography on the physical conditions of the rooting zone and on seedling growth, survival, and physiology. After two growing seasons, providing a raised planting spot...

1] The CO 2 fertilization hypothesis stipulates that rising atmospheric CO 2 has a direct positive effect on net primary productivity (NPP), with experimental evidence suggesting a 23% growth enhancement with a doubling of CO 2 . Here, we test this hypothesis by comparing a bioclimatic model simulation of NPP over the twentieth century against tree...

In a study of the seasonal variation of water-relation parameters in four black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill) BSP) populations, the weekly derivation of 32 pressure–volume curves with the sap-expression method between May and October required the simultaneous use of four pressure chambers and variable sample rehydration periods. Pressure chamber had...

There is a growing interest in using forest biomass as an energy source. The main objectives of this paper are to give somefigures and perspectives on Canadian forest biomass supply with respect to Canada’s energy demand and to examine thepotential of using this feedstock for reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Published estimates of fores...

Carbon in forest biomass has historically been the fulcrum for major changes in forestry and forests. Following T.S. Kuhn, these breaks with the past are seen as paradigm changes. We perceive planned adaptation of forestry and forests under climate change as a new paradigm change, precipitated once more by forest carbon. To be sustainable, forest m...

Boreal forests are one of the largest biomes on earth, covering 27% of the world's forests. In Canada, the dynamics of the boreal forests are largely dominated by large scale disturbances, with crown fires being the most geographically and temporally common. The probability of fire occurrence is strongly coupled to climate, making fire regimes quit...

Increasing irrigation efficiency and reducing groundwater contamination from agricultural and nursery runoff are important components in environmentally compatible plant production practices. The objectives of this study were to quantify mineral leaching from containerized (2+0) white spruce seedlings grown under three different irrigation regimes...