Preprints
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2309.11458
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2309.11458
08 Dec 2023
 | 08 Dec 2023

Distinguishing mature and immature trees allows to estimate forest carbon uptake from stand structure

Samuel Matthias Fischer, Xugao Wang, and Andreas Huth

Abstract. Relating forest productivity to local variations in forest structure has been a long-standing challenge. Previous studies often focused on the connection between forest structure and stand-level photosynthesis (GPP). However, biomass production (NPP) and net ecosystem exchange (NEE) are also subject to respiration and other carbon losses, which vary with local conditions and life history traits. Here, we use a simulation approach to study how these losses impact forest productivity and reveal themselves in forest structure. We fit the process-based forest model Formind to a 25 ha inventory of an old-growth temperate forest in China and classify trees as "mature" (full-grown) or "immature" based on their intrinsic carbon use efficiency. Our results reveal a strong negative connection between the stand-level carbon use efficiency and the prevalence of mature trees: GPP increases with the total basal area, whereas NPP and NEE are driven by the basal area of immature trees. Accordingly, the basal area entropy – a structural proxy for the prevalence of immature trees – correlated well with NPP and NEE and had higher predictive power than other structural characteristics such as Shannon diversity and height standard deviation. Our results were robust across spatial scales (0.04–1ha) and yield promising hypotheses field studies and new theoretical work.

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Journal article(s) based on this preprint

19 Jul 2024
Distinguishing mature and immature trees allows estimating forest carbon uptake from stand structure
Samuel M. Fischer, Xugao Wang, and Andreas Huth
Biogeosciences, 21, 3305–3319, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-3305-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-3305-2024, 2024
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The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.

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Understanding the drivers of forest productivity is key for accurately assessing forests’ role...
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