The legacy of disturbance on individual tree and stand-level aboveground biomass accumulation and stocks in primary mountain Picea abies forests

Our results emphasize the importance of including both individual tree age and disturbance legacies to accurately characterize biomass dynamics and trajectories in forest ecosystems. Importantly, the period of time that a tree is in the canopy, and not tree age, modulates the trajectory of tree level AGBI. Growth rates begin to decline after ∼30 years (tree-rings width) and ∼100 years (AGBI) in the canopy. We demonstrate that even late-seral forests can rapidly regain biomass lost to low intensity disturbance.