A large‐scale field assessment of carbon stocks in human‐modified tropical forests |
| |
Authors: | Erika Berenguer Joice Ferreira Toby Alan Gardner Luiz Eduardo Oliveira Cruz Aragão Plínio Barbosa De Camargo Carlos Eduardo Cerri Mariana Durigan Raimundo Cosme De Oliveira Junior Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira Jos Barlow |
| |
Affiliation: | 1. Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, , Lancaster, LA1 4YQ UK;2. Trav. Dr. Enéas Pinheiro s/n, Embrapa Amaz?nia Oriental, , Belém, 66.095‐100 PA, Brazil;3. Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, , Cambridge, CB2 3EJ UK;4. International Institute for Sustainability, , Rio de Janeiro, 22460‐320 Brazil;5. Stockholm Environment Institute, , Stockholm, 104 51 Sweden;6. College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, , Exeter, EX4 4RJ UK;7. Tropical Ecosystems and Environmental Sciences Group (TREES), Remote Sensing Division, National Institute for Space Research ‐ INPE, , Piracicaba, SP, CEP 12227‐010 Brazil;8. Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura, Universidade de S?o Paulo, , Piracicaba, SP, 13416‐903 Brazil;9. Departamento de Ciência do Solo, Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz‐Esalq, Universidade de S?o Paulo, , Piracicaba, SP, 13418‐900 Brazil;10. Núcleo do Médio Amazonas, Embrapa Amaz?nia Oriental, , Santarém, PA, 68035‐110 Brazil;11. MCT/Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, , Belém, PA, 66017‐970 Brazil |
| |
Abstract: | Tropical rainforests store enormous amounts of carbon, the protection of which represents a vital component of efforts to mitigate global climate change. Currently, tropical forest conservation, science, policies, and climate mitigation actions focus predominantly on reducing carbon emissions from deforestation alone. However, every year vast areas of the humid tropics are disturbed by selective logging, understory fires, and habitat fragmentation. There is an urgent need to understand the effect of such disturbances on carbon stocks, and how stocks in disturbed forests compare to those found in undisturbed primary forests as well as in regenerating secondary forests. Here, we present the results of the largest field study to date on the impacts of human disturbances on above and belowground carbon stocks in tropical forests. Live vegetation, the largest carbon pool, was extremely sensitive to disturbance: forests that experienced both selective logging and understory fires stored, on average, 40% less aboveground carbon than undisturbed forests and were structurally similar to secondary forests. Edge effects also played an important role in explaining variability in aboveground carbon stocks of disturbed forests. Results indicate a potential rapid recovery of the dead wood and litter carbon pools, while soil stocks (0–30 cm) appeared to be resistant to the effects of logging and fire. Carbon loss and subsequent emissions due to human disturbances remain largely unaccounted for in greenhouse gas inventories, but by comparing our estimates of depleted carbon stocks in disturbed forests with Brazilian government assessments of the total forest area annually disturbed in the Amazon, we show that these emissions could represent up to 40% of the carbon loss from deforestation in the region. We conclude that conservation programs aiming to ensure the long‐term permanence of forest carbon stocks, such as REDD+, will remain limited in their success unless they effectively avoid degradation as well as deforestation. |
| |
Keywords: | Amazon biomass forest degradation logging REDD+ secondary forests soil vegetation wildfires |
|
|