ABSTRACT
Woody detritus in the form of dead tree parts such as boles, stumps, branches, and coarse roots is an important store of carbon in forest ecosystems (Harmon and Chen, 1992). Not only does this material represent a large and frequently overlooked pool (Harmon et al., 1986), but also it is a crucial component of heterotrophic respiration (Turner et al., 1996). In recent years methods to study the size and dynamics of these detritus pools have been developed and applied to various ecosystems (Harmon et al., 1999). Despite an increase in these plot-level efforts, however, no reliable inventory-based estimates exist at the regional, national, or global scales (Turner et al., 1996; Kurtz et al., 1992).
