Tropical savannas: Biomass, plant ecology, and the role of fire and soil on vegetation

Furley, Peter A.

doi:10.1177/0309133310364934

Cited by 23 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 189 publications

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“…The woody component of savannas can be variable [2]; however, many woody savannas can be characterized as forests according to the FAO definition [3]. The woody component is of major significance for storing biomass [4,5], supporting biodiversity [6] and sustaining the local hydrological cycle [7]. A growing recognition of the value of natural carbon stores and the intention to reduce emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation [8] are encouraging developing countries to protect and manage these tropical forest ecosystems more sustainably.…”

Section: Why Map Tropical Savannas At More Local Scales?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Biogeographers and forest ecologists studying shifts in savanna-forest boundaries can use finer scale information to detect changes in the relative balance between woody vegetation and grasses more rapidly, whilst finer scale data allows them to understand the relative importance of human activities compared to climatic changes as factors influencing local shifts [4,[28][29][30][31][32][33]. AGWB estimates derived from ALOS PALSAR may enable scientists to explore and monitor these dynamic phenomena and processes in more depth.…”

Section: The Use Of More Detailed Mapping Of Woody Biomass In Savannasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To assess the uncertainty of the AGWB map created using the ALOS PALSAR data and the semi-empirical WCM, an evaluation of the estimation accuracy was conducted using the validation dataset (Table 1) for the lower biomass range (i.e., ≤75 tha −1 ) and the training dataset ( ) using Equation (4).…”

Section: Biomass Mapping Using Alos Palsar and Semi-empirical Modellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Local-Scale Mapping of Biomass in Tropical Lowland Pine Savannas Using ALOS PALSAR

Michelakis

Stuart

Lopez

et al. 2014

Forests

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Fine-scale biomass maps offer forest managers the prospect of more detailed and locally accurate information for measuring, reporting and verification activities in contexts, such as sustainable forest management, carbon stock assessments and ecological studies of forest growth and change. In this study, we apply a locally validated method for estimating aboveground woody biomass (AGWB) from Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array-type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) data to produce an AGWB map for the lowland pine savannas of Belize at a spatial resolution of 100 m. Over 90% of these woodlands are predicted to have an AGWB below 60 tha −1 , with the average woody biomass of these savannas estimated at 23.5 tha −1 . By overlaying these spatial estimates upon previous thematic mapping of national land cover, we derive representative average biomass values of ~32 tha −1 and ~18 tha −1 for the previously qualitative classes of "denser" and "less dense" tree savannas. The predicted average biomass, from the mapping for savannas woodlands occurring within two of Belize's larger protected areas, agree closely with previous biomass estimates for these areas based on ground surveys and forest inventories (error ≤20%). However, biomass estimates derived for these protected areas from two biomass maps produced at coarser resolutions (500 m and 1000 m) from global datasets overestimated biomass (errors ≥275% in each dataset). OPEN ACCESSForests 2014, 5 2378The finer scale biomass mapping of both protected and unprotected areas provides evidence to suggest that protection has a positive effect upon woody biomass, with the mean AGWB higher in areas protected and managed for biodiversity (protected and passively managed (PRPM), 29.5 tha −1 ) compared to unprotected areas (UPR, 23.29 tha −1 ).These findings suggest that where sufficient ground data exists to build a reliable local relationship to radar backscatter, the more detailed biomass mapping that can be produced from ALOS and similar satellite data at resolutions of ~100 m provides more accurate and spatially detailed information that is more appropriate for supporting the management of forested areas of ~10,000 ha than biomass maps that can be produced from lower resolution, but freely available global data sets.

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Section: Why Map Tropical Savannas At More Local Scales?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Use Of More Detailed Mapping Of Woody Biomass In Savannasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Biomass Mapping Using Alos Palsar and Semi-empirical Modellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Local-Scale Mapping of Biomass in Tropical Lowland Pine Savannas Using ALOS PALSAR

Michelakis

Stuart

Lopez

et al. 2014

Forests

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show abstract

“…In addition to spatial measurement, it has long been clear that temporal surveys at varied time intervals are required, particularly in biomes that are highly dynamic such as miombo (Furley, 2010). The problem of biomass retrieval in miombo is compounded by the fact that senescent and dead material (also known as NPV) associated with phenology and disturbances can be a major component of the total surface cover.…”

Section: Wwwintechopencommentioning

confidence: 99%

Remote Sensing of Biomass in the Miombo Woodlands of Southern Africa: Opportunities and Limitations for Research

Ribeiro¹,

Cumbana²,

Mamugy³

et al. 2012

Remote Sensing of Biomass - Principles and Applications

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“…Environmental history narratives such as The Future Eaters, The Biggest Estate on Earth (Gammage 2011) and Dark Emu (Pascoe 2014) have ingrained in the popular imagination the idea that Aboriginal fire-use fundamentally transformed Australia. Evaluating the ecological legacy of landscape burning by indigenous people is extremely challenging (McWethy et al 2013;Foreman 2016), but is essential for understanding how current and future human-dominated fire regimes might transform vegetation distributions globally (Johnstone et al 2016) and the flow-on effects for the carbon cycle and hence anthropogenic climate change (Furley 2010).…”

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confidence: 99%

Soil or fire: what causes treeless sedgelands in Tasmanian wet forests?

Bowman

Perry

2017

Plant Soil

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Background Ecologists fiercely debate the role of soil conditions and fire regimes in controlling forest -savanna boundaries. A prominent component of this debate centres on the plausibility and existence of fire-mediated alternative stable state dynamics (FMASS), a model first proposed by the Tasmanian ecologist WD Jackson in 1968. The FMASS model asserts that increased or decreased landscape fire activity, often due to human intervention, can overwhelm physical environmental (e.g. topography and edaphic factors) controls of forest and savanna mosaics, thereby creating landscape dynamism. Many FMASS models include fire-vegetation-soil interactions (FVS), in which changes in fire frequency can change soil fertility and hence tree growth. This interaction, in turn, affects the capacity offorests to recover from disturbance and long unburnt savanna to convert to forest. Scope We evaluate support for the FMASS-FVS model in the context of the dynamics of the Tasmanian forests that have recently been drawn into wider, global debates surrounding the cooccurrence of tree and treeless vegetation states. We develop a simple spatial simulation model to illuminate the difficulties in analysing landscape pattern to draw inferences about the existence of FMASS-FVS. Conclusions Our review of the Tasmanian evidence shows that FMASS-FVS cannot unambiguously explain all tracts of sedgelands in Tasmanian wet forests, and hence Tasmania should not be used as an exemplar of these theories globally. Our simulations highlight that soil sampling that targets forest boundaries risks erroneously concluding that the distribution of forest and savanna boundaries is decoupled from edaphic factors. We describe a structured methodological pathway that can identify the role of FMASS-FVS in Tasmanian forest dynamics, and elsewhere in the world. This approach use cross-scale temporal and spatial analyses, and targeted experimental tests, to illuminate the interplay of fire, vegetation and edaphic factors in controlling tree establishment and growth and forest boundary dynamics.

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Tropical savannas: Biomass, plant ecology, and the role of fire and soil on vegetation

Cited by 23 publications

References 189 publications

Local-Scale Mapping of Biomass in Tropical Lowland Pine Savannas Using ALOS PALSAR

Local-Scale Mapping of Biomass in Tropical Lowland Pine Savannas Using ALOS PALSAR

Remote Sensing of Biomass in the Miombo Woodlands of Southern Africa: Opportunities and Limitations for Research

Soil or fire: what causes treeless sedgelands in Tasmanian wet forests?

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