Purpose of Review
Carbon sequestration and storage in forest ecosystems is often promoted as a solution for reducing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Yet, our understanding is lacking regarding how forest management strategies affect the net removal of greenhouse gases and contribute to climate change mitigation. Here, we present a review of carbon sequestration and stock dynamics, following three strategies that are widely used in boreal, temperate and tropical forests: extensive forest management, intensive forest management and old-growth forest conservation.
Recent Findings
Several studies show that specific forest management strategies can improve carbon sequestration capacity and soil carbon storage. Within these studies, the old-growth forest conservation strategy results in greater carbon storage in soils than do extensive and intensive forest management. Intensive forest management enhances forest carbon sequestration capacity through afforestation using fast-growing species, mechanical soil preparation from low to moderate intensity and N fertilization. Extensive forest management is an intermediate compromise regarding carbon sequestration and soil carbon storage, between conservation and intensive forest management strategies. With respect to silvicultural treatments, partial cutting is a practice that increases forest carbon sequestration rates and maintains higher carbon storage in soils compared to clear-cuts. Each silvicultural practice that is discussed in this review showed a similar effect on forest carbon in all biomes, although the magnitude of these effects differs mainly in terms of heterotrophic respiration.
Summary
To achieve sustainable management and fulfill industrial demand and profitability, specific gaps must be dealt with to improve our scientific knowledge regarding forest carbon sequestration in a climate change context, mainly through the integration of the three aforementioned strategies in a functional zoning approach at the landscape scale. We present a review with promising strategies for guiding sustainable forest management in such a global context.
Several recent studies point out that climate change is expected to influence boreal forest succession, disturbances, productivity, and mortality. However, the effect of climate change on those processes and their interactions is poorly understood. We used an ecophysiological-based mechanistic landscape model to study those processes and their interactions and predict the future productivity and composition under climate change scenarios (RCP) for 300 years (2010–2310). The effects of climate change and wildfires on forest composition, biomass carbon sequestration and storage, and mortality were assessed in three management units of Quebec boreal forest, distributed along a longitudinal gradient from west to east: North-of-Quebec (MU1), Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean (MU2), and Côte-Nord region (MU3). Coniferous mortality variation was explained by competitive exclusion and wildfires, which are related to climate change. In the studied MU, we found a decrease in coniferous pure occupancy at the landscape scale and an increase in mixed deciduous forests in MU1 and MU2, and an increase in mixed coniferous, mainly black spruce and balsam fir in MU3. On the other hand, for extreme scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5), in the absence of broadleaves dispersal, the open woodland occupancy could increase to more than 8, 22, and 10% in MU1, MU2, and MU3 respectively. Also, climate change might increase overall biomass carbon stock two times for RCP2.6 and RCP4.5 scenarios compared to the baseline this may be explained by the extension of the growing season and the reduction of potential cold-temperature injuries. Generally, western regions were more sensitive to climate changes than the eastern regions (MU3), in fact under RCP8.5 biomass carbon stock will be decreasing in the long-term for MU1 compared to the current climate. This study provides a good starting point to support future research on the multiple factors affecting forest C budget under global change.
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