Tree Allometrics

Picea rubens / Branch biomass

Canadian national equation, red spruce, dbh and height (branches; Table 4)

Branch biomassPicea rubens · PinaceaeCanadaRead from the original paper
Photo of Picea rubens
© Douglas Goldman · CC BY-SA · iNaturalist
Equation

As printed (Eq. 3)

y branches = β branches1D βbranches2Hβbranches3 + e branches

In this library's units, ready to compute (kg)

Branch biomass = 0.0005 * D^3.3136
D
Diameter at breast height (1.3 m), cm

All branches, cut at the stem base (live branches; dead branches excluded). Height drops out of the branches term: the paper leaves its height exponent blank (—, not significantly different from zero). r2 is the adjusted R² (AdjRSq) of this compartment in Table 5. Fitted on the original scale (weighted nonlinear seemingly unrelated regression), so there is no back-transform correction. Dead branches, cones and fruits are not part of aboveground biomass in this work (Materials). Stand type was not always recorded. Ung, Bernier & Guo (2008) later revised parameters for some species with British Columbia data; not used here.

Source
bbranches1 0.0005
Equation · Table 4, Red spruce
bbranches2 3.3136
Equation · Table 4, Red spruce
bbranches3 —
Equation · Table 4, Red spruce
Red spruce 55 22.9±1.2 15.9±0.4 207.7±22.4
Trees measured · Table 2 (No. of trees)
(6.5;43.5) (8.0;21.2) (9.1;811.7)
Smallest DBH · Table 2, Red spruce (ranges of dbh, height, total biomass)
Branches 0.0003 0.93 6.6 3.58 0.0004 0.93 6.6 3.48
R² · Table 5, Red spruce (AdjRSq in the dbh- and height-based set, second block)
Trees measured
55
DBH range
6.5–43.5 cm
Height range
8–21.2 m
R²
0.93
Method
Nonlinear seemingly unrelated regression with weight functions; additivity constrained so compartments sum to total
Where
Quebec, Canada (ENFOR archival data, early 1980s)
Last checked
2026-11-03
Calculate
10.2
Branch biomass (kg)
4.81
Carbon (kg), ×0.47
17.6
CO₂e (kg), ×44/12
Fitted DBH range020406080100120510152025303540DBH (cm)Branch biomass (kg)Branch biomass

Shaded: the DBH range the model was fitted on. Other inputs held at the values above.

Checks this equation passes

On every build, the library's form and the paper's own form (in its units) must both give these values within 1%.

InputsExpectedWe getFrom
D = 20, H = 1510.210.2Computed from the printed form
computed from the published form at dbh = 20 cm, H = 15 m

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