TY - JOUR
T1 - Forest biomass density across large climate gradients in northern South America is related to water availability but not with temperature
AU - Álvarez-Dávila, Esteban
AU - Cayuela, Luis
AU - González-Caro, Sebastián
AU - Aldana, Ana M.
AU - Stevenson, Pablo R.
AU - Phillips, Oliver
AU - Cogollo, Álvaro
AU - Peñuela, Maria C.
AU - Von Hildebrand, Patricio
AU - Jiménez, Eliana
AU - Melo, Omar
AU - Londoño-Vega, Ana Catalina
AU - Mendoza, Irina
AU - Velásquez, Oswaldo
AU - Fernández, Fernando
AU - Serna, Marcela
AU - Velázquez-Rua, Cesar
AU - Benítez, Doris
AU - Rey-Benayas, José M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Álvarez-Dávila et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Copyright:
Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/3
Y1 - 2017/3
N2 - Understanding and predicting the likely response of ecosystems to climate change are crucial challenges for ecology and for conservation biology. Nowhere is this challenge greater than in the tropics as these forests store more than half the total atmospheric carbon stock in their biomass. Biomass is determined by the balance between biomass inputs (i.e., growth) and outputs (mortality). We can expect therefore that conditions that favor high growth rates, such as abundant water supply, warmth, and nutrient-rich soils will tend to correlate with high biomass stocks. Our main objective is to describe the patterns of above ground biomass (AGB) stocks across major tropical forests across climatic gradients in Northwestern South America. We gathered data from 200 plots across the region, at elevations ranging between 0 to 3400 m. We estimated AGB based on allometric equations and values for stem density, basal area, and wood density weighted by basal area at the plotlevel. We used two groups of climatic variables, namely mean annual temperature and actual evapotranspiration as surrogates of environmental energy, and annual precipitation, precipitation seasonality, and water availability as surrogates of water availability. We found that AGB is more closely related to water availability variables than to energy variables. In northwest South America, water availability influences carbon stocks principally by determining stand structure, i.e. basal area. When water deficits increase in tropical forests we can expect negative impact on biomass and hence carbon storage.
AB - Understanding and predicting the likely response of ecosystems to climate change are crucial challenges for ecology and for conservation biology. Nowhere is this challenge greater than in the tropics as these forests store more than half the total atmospheric carbon stock in their biomass. Biomass is determined by the balance between biomass inputs (i.e., growth) and outputs (mortality). We can expect therefore that conditions that favor high growth rates, such as abundant water supply, warmth, and nutrient-rich soils will tend to correlate with high biomass stocks. Our main objective is to describe the patterns of above ground biomass (AGB) stocks across major tropical forests across climatic gradients in Northwestern South America. We gathered data from 200 plots across the region, at elevations ranging between 0 to 3400 m. We estimated AGB based on allometric equations and values for stem density, basal area, and wood density weighted by basal area at the plotlevel. We used two groups of climatic variables, namely mean annual temperature and actual evapotranspiration as surrogates of environmental energy, and annual precipitation, precipitation seasonality, and water availability as surrogates of water availability. We found that AGB is more closely related to water availability variables than to energy variables. In northwest South America, water availability influences carbon stocks principally by determining stand structure, i.e. basal area. When water deficits increase in tropical forests we can expect negative impact on biomass and hence carbon storage.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0171072
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0171072
M3 - Research Article
C2 - 28301482
AN - SCOPUS:85015294578
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 12
JO - PLOS ONE
JF - PLOS ONE
IS - 3
M1 - e0171072
ER -