Quantifying the effect of forest age in annual net forest carbon balance

Besnard, Simon; Carvalhais, Nuno; Arain, M. Altaf; Black, Andrew; Bruin, S. de; Buchmann, Nina; Cescatti, Alessandro; Chen, Jiquan; Clevers, J.G.P.W.; Desai, Ankur R.; Gough, Christopher M.; Havránková, Kateřina; Herold, Martin; Hörtnagl, Lukas; Jung, Martin; Knohl, Alexander; Kruijt, B.; Krupková, Lenka; Law, Beverly E.; Lindroth, Anders; Noormets, Asko; Roupsard, Olivier; Steinbrecher, R.; Varlagin, Andrej; Vincke, Caroline; Reichstein, Markus

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aaeaeb

Cited by 79 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…A test of Odum's theory, using data from 39 temperate forest stands, found little evidence for a decline in net productivity for mid‐succession forests, 100–200 years old, and a slight decline for older forests (Curtis & Gough, ; Gough et al, ). Another study analyzed data from 126 forest sites and fit eddy covariance measurements of annual net ecosystem productivity (NEP) to the function that is dependent on stand age (Besnard et al, ). They found that an empirical model describes that the relation between NEP (g C m −2 year −1 ) and age (years) shows an asymptotic behavior:

NEP = - 324.7 + 587.7 (1 - \exp (- 0.2 age)) .

…”

Section: What Have We Learned About Carbon Fluxes?mentioning

confidence: 99%

How eddy covariance flux measurements have contributed to our understanding of Global Change Biology

Baldocchi

2019

Global Change Biology

303

164

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A global network of long‐term carbon and water flux measurements has existed since the late 1990s. With its representative sampling of the terrestrial biosphere's climate and ecological spaces, this network is providing background information and direct measurements on how ecosystem metabolism responds to environmental and biological forcings and how they may be changing in a warmer world with more carbon dioxide. In this review, I explore how carbon and water fluxes of the world's ecosystem are responding to a suite of covarying environmental factors, like sunlight, temperature, soil moisture, and carbon dioxide. I also report on how coupled carbon and water fluxes are modulated by biological and ecological factors such as phenology and a suite of structural and functional properties. And, I investigate whether long‐term trends in carbon and water fluxes are emerging in various ecological and climate spaces and the degree to which they may be driven by physical and biological forcings. As a growing number of time series extend up to 20 years in duration, we are at the verge of capturing ecosystem scale trends in the breathing of a changing biosphere. Consequently, flux measurements need to continue to report on future conditions and responses and assess the efficacy of natural climate solutions.

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NEP = - 324.7 + 587.7 (1 - \exp (- 0.2 age)) .

…”

Section: What Have We Learned About Carbon Fluxes?mentioning

confidence: 99%

How eddy covariance flux measurements have contributed to our understanding of Global Change Biology

Baldocchi

2019

Global Change Biology

303

164

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“…Either ignoring such outliers or judging that a measurement bias by soil chambers affects all sites the same way (e.g. systematic overestimation of soil respiration in lowturbulence conditions when using static chambers, Braendholt et al, 2017), we may argue that the apparent decrease in both chamber / EC ratios R soil / GPP and R soil / R eco with N dep (Fig. 11a, c) has some reality, even if their absolute values are biased.…”

Section: Does Nitrogen Deposition Impact Soil Respiration?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon–nitrogen interactions in European forests and semi-natural vegetation – Part 2: Untangling climatic, edaphic, management and nitrogen deposition effects on carbon sequestration potentials

et al. 2020

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The effects of atmospheric nitrogen deposition (N dep ) on carbon (C) sequestration in forests have often been assessed by relating differences in productivity to spatial variations of N dep across a large geographic domain. These correlations generally suffer from covariation of other confounding variables related to climate and other growth-limiting factors, as well as large uncertainties in total (dry + wet) reactive nitrogen (N r ) deposition. We propose a methodology for untangling the effects of N dep from those of meteorological variables, soil water retention capacity and stand age, using a mechanistic forest growth model in combination with eddy covariance CO 2 exchange fluxes from a Europe-wide network of 22 forest flux towers. Total N r deposition rates were estimated from local measurements as far as possible. The forest data were compared with data from natural or semi-natural, non-woody vegetation sites.The response of forest net ecosystem productivity to nitrogen deposition (dNEP / dN dep ) was estimated after accounting for the effects on gross primary productivity (GPP) of the co-correlates by means of a meta-modelling standardization procedure, which resulted in a reduction by a factor of about 2 of the uncorrected, apparent dGPP / dN dep value. This model-enhanced analysis of the C and N dep flux observations at the scale of the European network suggests a mean overall dNEP / dN dep response of forest lifetime C sequestration to N dep of the order of 40-50 g C per g N, which is slightly larger but not significantly different from the range of estimates published in the most recent reviews. Importantly, patterns of gross primary and net ecosystem productivity versus N dep were non-linear, with no further growth responses at high N dep levels (N dep > 2.5-3 g N m −2 yr −1 ) but accom-panied by increasingly large ecosystem N losses by leaching and gaseous emissions. The reduced increase in productivity per unit N deposited at high N dep levels implies that the forecast increased N r emissions and increased N dep levels in large areas of Asia may not positively impact the continent's forest CO 2 sink. The large level of unexplained variability in observed carbon sequestration efficiency (CSE) across sites further adds to the uncertainty in the dC/dN response.

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“…Fifth, heterotrophic respiration of exuded photosynthate and dead plant material by microbes (Kuzyakov, 2010) and disturbance by fire, mortality, insects and pathogens, landslides or floods (Amiro et al, 2010) return an additional increment of carbon to the atmosphere on ecosystem time and space scales. And sixth, the ability of an ecosystem to sequester carbon will vary with its age (Besnard et al, 2018;Coursolle et al, 2012;Odum, 1969).…”

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confidence: 99%

The physics and ecology of mining carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by ecosystems

Baldocchi

Peñuelas

2019

Global Change Biology

163

119

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Reforesting and managing ecosystems have been proposed as ways to mitigate global warming and offset anthropogenic carbon emissions. The intent of our opinion piece is to provide a perspective on how well plants and ecosystems sequester carbon. The ability of individual plants and ecosystems to mine carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as defined by rates and cumulative amounts, is limited by laws of physics and ecological principles. Consequently, the rates and amount of net carbon uptake are slow and low compared to the rates and amounts of carbon dioxide we release by fossil fuels combustion. Managing ecosystems to sequester carbon can also cause unintended consequences to arise. In this paper, we articulate a series of key take‐home points. First, the potential amount of carbon an ecosystem can assimilate on an annual basis scales with absorbed sunlight, which varies with latitude, leaf area index and available water. Second, efforts to improve photosynthesis will come with the cost of more respiration. Third, the rates and amount of net carbon uptake are relatively slow and low, compared to the rates and amounts and rates of carbon dioxide we release by fossil fuels combustion. Fourth, huge amounts of land area for ecosystems will be needed to be an effective carbon sink to mitigate anthropogenic carbon emissions. Fifth, the effectiveness of using this land as a carbon sink will depend on its ability to remain as a permanent carbon sink. Sixth, converting land to forests or wetlands may have unintended costs that warm the local climate, such as changing albedo, increasing surface roughness or releasing other greenhouse gases. We based our analysis on 1,163 site‐years of direct eddy covariance measurements of gross and net carbon fluxes from 155 sites across the globe.

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Quantifying the effect of forest age in annual net forest carbon balance

Cited by 79 publications

References 79 publications

How eddy covariance flux measurements have contributed to our understanding of Global Change Biology

How eddy covariance flux measurements have contributed to our understanding of Global Change Biology

Carbon–nitrogen interactions in European forests and semi-natural vegetation – Part 2: Untangling climatic, edaphic, management and nitrogen deposition effects on carbon sequestration potentials

The physics and ecology of mining carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by ecosystems

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