Species Loss and Aboveground Carbon Storage in a Tropical Forest

Abstract

Tropical forest biodiversity is declining, but the resulting effects on key ecosystem services, such as carbon storage and sequestration, remain unknown. We assessed the influence of the loss of tropical tree species on carbon storage by simulating 18 possible extinction scenarios within a well-studied 50-hectare tropical forest plot in Panama, which contains 227 tree species. Among extinction scenarios, aboveground carbon stocks varied by more than 600%, and biological insurance varied by more than 400%. These results indicate that future carbon storage in tropical forests will be influenced strongly by future species composition.

Tree Diversity Changes over a Decade (2003-2013) in Four Inland Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest Sites on the Coromandel Coast of India

“…In par-ticular, greater number of trees were removed in lower size classes indicating the forest dependence of local people for their livelihood. Whatsoever the causes be the changes in forest composition and structure will have important implications on vital ecosystem services they render (Korner 2004;Bunker et al 2005). Therefore an integrated plan is required to support recovery of the forest species and ecosystem by making compensatory planting of native plant species with the involvement of the local community while planning for site conservation.…”

Variation in carbon storage among tree species: Implications for the management of a small-scale carbon sink project

“…However, our work underlined the disproportionate contribution of a small number of species to stand-level carbon stocks. Although differences in the functional traits of tree species (such as average DBH, wood density, and life span) are a well-known principle of community ecology (e.g., Korner, 2005), the magnitude of the effect of such differences on stand-level carbon storage is rarely emphasized in the context of C-sink initiatives (but see Balvanera et al, 2005;Bunker et al, 2005).…”

“…In the latter case, understanding the relationship of tree-species diversity to carbon storage will be critical to maintaining C stocks of protected forests over the long term. To our knowledge, the importance of specieslevel management has only been explored in model landscapes to date (Balvanera et al, 2005;Bunker et al, 2005).…”

“…These findings provide support for the "sampling effect hypothesis," which argues that it is the inclusion by chance of functionally important species in more diverse assemblages that results in any observed increases in productivity rather than increases in diversity per se. In forests, examples of the uneven contribution of species to C sequestration and storage include the higher rate of C sequestration by species that are fast-versus slow-growing and, in established systems, the greater storage of C in large, long-lived species and in species with dense versus light wood Fearnside, 1997;Pinard and Cropper, 2000;Caspersen and Pacala, 2001;Baker et al, 2004;Balvanera et al, 2005;Bunker et al, 2005).…”

Plant functional types and traits as biodiversity indicators for tropical forests: two biogeographically separated case studies including birds, mammals and termites

“…Tropical forests contain much of the world's terrestrial biodiversity and significant carbon stocks (Bunker et al 2005). Particular interest centres on assessing the biodiversity value of modified and disturbed forest ecosystems and the ability of such systems to buffer biodiversity losses expected with the degradation or conversion of more pristine habitats (Wright and Muller-Landau 2006;Chazdon et al 2009 (Lawton et al 1998), but conservation management can benefit from the identification of any surrogate that broadly predicts overall biodiversity by reflecting the major determinants of taxonomic variety and species richness (Meijaard and Sheil 2012).…”