Liberation of future crop trees from lianas in Belize: Completeness, costs, and timber-yield benefits

Mills, Daniel J.; Bohlman, Stephanie A.; Putz, Francis E.; Andreu, Michael G.

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2019.02.023

Cited by 17 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Instead, we advocate first of all for scrupulous use of RIL practices and for yield maintenance in designated portions of the logging landscape that are ecologically and economically appropriate. We also endorse at least gentle silvicultural intensification with interventions designed to increase growth and yield, such as cutting lianas on future crop trees (e.g., Putz and Romero, 2015;Mills et al, 2019). In addition to accessibility, site capability, and environmental or cultural constraints, spatial planning of management in logging landscapes in the tropics should also consider adjacency, connectivity, and patch size (e.g., Llorente et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intact Forest in Selective Logging Landscapes in the Tropics

Putz

Baker

Griscom

et al. 2019

Front. For. Glob. Change

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The selective logging that characterizes most timber extraction operations in the tropics leaves large patches of logging blocks (i. e., areas allocated for harvesting) intact, with no direct impacts of the harvest. For example, in the ∼10,000 ha we sampled in 48 forest management enterprises in Africa (Gabon, Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo), Indonesia, Suriname, and Mexico, an average of 57% (range 22-97%) of the area in logging blocks was not directly affected by timber harvests. The proportion of intact forest within logging blocks decreased very slightly with increases in harvest intensity in the accessed portion of the logging blocks (9-86 m 3 ha −1) but decreased strongly with harvest intensity in entire logging blocks (0.3-48.2 m 3 ha −1). More forest was left intact in areas farther from roads, on slopes >40%, and within 25 m of perennial streams, but the effect sizes of each of these variables was small (∼8%). It is less clear how much of the intact forest left after one harvest will remain intact through the next. Conservation benefits without reductions in timber yields will derive from better management planning so that sensitive and ecologically critical areas, such as steep slopes and riparian buffers, constitute permanent reserves of intact forest in selectively logged landscapes in the tropics.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intact Forest in Selective Logging Landscapes in the Tropics

Putz

Baker

Griscom

et al. 2019

Front. For. Glob. Change

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“…It must also be emphasized that the positive impacts of liana removal on forest productivity and carbon sequestration as observed in experimental plots (van der Heijden et al, 2015) and confirmed in our model simulations might be temporary. The substantial benefit of tree growth after liana cutting (Mills et al, 2019) presumably diminish with time, even if some seminal studies suggest that they could persist as long as 6-10 years after removal (Kainer, 2014;van der Heijden et al, 2019). Longer model simulations validated on larger experimental datasets should allow the quantification of those long-versus short-term liana-removal impacts.…”

Section: Study Limitations and Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unraveling the relative role of light and water competition between lianas and trees in tropical forests: A vegetation model analysis

et al. 2020

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1. Despite their low contribution to forest carbon stocks, lianas (woody vines) play an important role in the carbon dynamics of tropical forests. As structural parasites, they hinder tree survival, growth and fecundity; hence, they negatively impact net ecosystem productivity and long-term carbon sequestration. 2. Competition (for water and light) drives various forest processes and depends on the local abundance of resources over time. However, evaluating the relative role of resource availability on the interactions between lianas and trees from empirical observations is particularly challenging. Previous approaches have used labour-intensive and ecosystem-scale manipulation experiments, which are infeasible in most situations. 3. We propose to circumvent this challenge by evaluating the uncertainty of water and light capture processes of a process-based vegetation model (ED2) including the liana growth form. We further developed the liana plant functional type in ED2 to mechanistically simulate water uptake and transport from roots to leaves, and start the model from prescribed initial conditions. We then used the PEcAn bioinformatics platform to constrain liana parameters and run uncertainty analyses. 4. Baseline runs successfully reproduced ecosystem gas exchange fluxes (gross primary productivity and latent heat) and forest structural features (leaf area index, aboveground biomass) in two sites (Barro Colorado Island, Panama and Paracou, French Guiana) characterized by different rainfall regimes and levels of liana abundance. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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“…Climbing plants tend to proliferate extensively after disturbance and compete strongly with trees for light, water, and other resources, limiting tree growth, survival, recruitment, and aboveground biomass sequestration (Meunier, van der Heijden, et al, 2021 ; Meunier, Verbeeck, et al, 2021 ; Schnitzer & Bongers, 2002 ). Estrada‐Villegas and Schnitzer ( 2018 ) conclude that lianas have a negative impact on all metrics of tree performance, and it has been estimated that removing climbers in tropical forests enhances tree growth up to 372%, timber yield by 1.51 m 3 per tree over 40 years, and aboveground biomass by ~76% per year compared to untreated forest (Estrada‐Villegas & Schnitzer, 2018 ; Mills et al, 2019 ; van der Heijden et al, 2015 ). However, these are site and region‐specific studies that report varying climber cutting efficacy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Removing climbers more than doubles tree growth and biomass in degraded tropical forests

Finlayson

Roopsind

Griscom

et al. 2022

Ecology and Evolution

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Huge areas of tropical forests are degraded, reducing their biodiversity, carbon, and timber value. The recovery of these degraded forests can be significantly inhibited by climbing plants such as lianas. Removal of super‐abundant climbers thus represents a restoration action with huge potential for application across the tropics. While experimental studies largely report positive impacts of climber removal on tree growth and biomass accumulation, the efficacy of climber removal varies widely, with high uncertainty as to where and how to apply the technique. Using meta‐analytic techniques, we synthesize results from 26 studies to quantify the efficacy of climber removal for promoting tree growth and biomass accumulation. We find that climber removal increases tree growth by 156% and biomass accumulation by 209% compared to untreated forest, and that efficacy remains for at least 19 years. Extrapolating from these results, climber removal could sequester an additional 32 Gigatons of CO2 over 10 years, at low cost, across regrowth, and production forests. Our analysis also revealed that climber removal studies are concentrated in the Neotropics (N = 22), relative to Africa (N = 2) and Asia (N = 2), preventing our study from assessing the influence of region on removal efficacy. While we found some evidence that enhancement of tree growth and AGB accumulation varies across disturbance context and removal method, but not across climate, the number and geographical distribution of studies limits the strength of these conclusions. Climber removal could contribute significantly to reducing global carbon emissions and enhancing the timber and biomass stocks of degraded forests, ultimately protecting them from conversion. However, we urgently need to assess the efficacy of removal outside the Neotropics, and consider the potential negative consequences of climber removal under drought conditions and for biodiversity.

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Liberation of future crop trees from lianas in Belize: Completeness, costs, and timber-yield benefits

Cited by 17 publications

References 30 publications

Intact Forest in Selective Logging Landscapes in the Tropics

Intact Forest in Selective Logging Landscapes in the Tropics

Unraveling the relative role of light and water competition between lianas and trees in tropical forests: A vegetation model analysis

Removing climbers more than doubles tree growth and biomass in degraded tropical forests

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