Abstract
Our research group carried out two projects through UW-NPS and the AMK Ranch in 2007, a field study (project #1) and a workshop for managers (project #2). In 2004 we had initiated a field study of carbon stocks along a replicated chronosequence of stands in Yellowstone National Park that had burned at varying times from ca. 1700 AD through 1988. In each stand we measured all of the major carbon pools (including live biomass, dead biomass, and soil carbon) to characterize changes over time in net ecosystem production (the net balance between carbon uptake and loss from an ecosystem). These empirical data were then used to evaluate the potential effects of changing climate and changing fire frequency on how the Yellowstone landscape as a whole functions as either a carbon sink or a carbon source in the global carbon cycle.