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

Besnard, Simon ; Carvalhais, Nuno ; Arain, M. Altaf ; Black, Andrew ; De Bruin, Sytze ; Buchmann, Nina ; Cescatti, Alessandro ; Chen, Jiquan ; Clevers, Jan G.P.W. and Desai, Ankur R. , et al. (2018) In Environmental Research Letters 13(12).
Abstract

Forests dominate carbon (C) exchanges between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere on land. In the long term, the net carbon flux between forests and the atmosphere has been significantly impacted by changes in forest cover area and structure due to ecological disturbances and management activities. Current empirical approaches for estimating net ecosystem productivity (NEP) rarely consider forest age as a predictor, which represents variation in physiological processes that can respond differently to environmental drivers, and regrowth following disturbance. Here, we conduct an observational synthesis to empirically determine to what extent climate, soil properties, nitrogen deposition, forest age and management influence the... (More)

Forests dominate carbon (C) exchanges between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere on land. In the long term, the net carbon flux between forests and the atmosphere has been significantly impacted by changes in forest cover area and structure due to ecological disturbances and management activities. Current empirical approaches for estimating net ecosystem productivity (NEP) rarely consider forest age as a predictor, which represents variation in physiological processes that can respond differently to environmental drivers, and regrowth following disturbance. Here, we conduct an observational synthesis to empirically determine to what extent climate, soil properties, nitrogen deposition, forest age and management influence the spatial and interannual variability of forest NEP across 126 forest eddy-covariance flux sites worldwide. The empirical models explained up to 62% and 71% of spatio-temporal and across-site variability of annual NEP, respectively. An investigation of model structures revealed that forest age was a dominant factor of NEP spatio-temporal variability in both space and time at the global scale as compared to abiotic factors, such as nutrient availability, soil characteristics and climate. These findings emphasize the importance of forest age in quantifying spatio-temporal variation in NEP using empirical approaches.

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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
@article{a262b072-dcb7-497f-b966-b7dcd3c2fec5,
  abstract     = {{<p>Forests dominate carbon (C) exchanges between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere on land. In the long term, the net carbon flux between forests and the atmosphere has been significantly impacted by changes in forest cover area and structure due to ecological disturbances and management activities. Current empirical approaches for estimating net ecosystem productivity (NEP) rarely consider forest age as a predictor, which represents variation in physiological processes that can respond differently to environmental drivers, and regrowth following disturbance. Here, we conduct an observational synthesis to empirically determine to what extent climate, soil properties, nitrogen deposition, forest age and management influence the spatial and interannual variability of forest NEP across 126 forest eddy-covariance flux sites worldwide. The empirical models explained up to 62% and 71% of spatio-temporal and across-site variability of annual NEP, respectively. An investigation of model structures revealed that forest age was a dominant factor of NEP spatio-temporal variability in both space and time at the global scale as compared to abiotic factors, such as nutrient availability, soil characteristics and climate. These findings emphasize the importance of forest age in quantifying spatio-temporal variation in NEP using empirical approaches.</p>}},
  author       = {{Besnard, Simon and Carvalhais, Nuno and Arain, M. Altaf and Black, Andrew and De Bruin, Sytze and Buchmann, Nina and Cescatti, Alessandro and Chen, Jiquan and Clevers, Jan G.P.W. and Desai, Ankur R. and Gough, Christopher M. and Havrankova, Katerina and Herold, Martin and Hörtnagl, Lukas and Jung, Martin and Knohl, Alexander and Kruijt, Bart and Krupkova, Lenka and Law, Beverly E. and Lindroth, Anders and Noormets, Asko and Roupsard, Olivier and Steinbrecher, Rainer and Varlagin, Andrej and Vincke, Caroline and Reichstein, Markus}},
  issn         = {{1748-9326}},
  keywords     = {{carbon cycle; climate; eddy covariance, net ecosystem production; empirical modeling; forest age; soil properties}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{12}},
  publisher    = {{IOP Publishing}},
  series       = {{Environmental Research Letters}},
  title        = {{Quantifying the effect of forest age in annual net forest carbon balance}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaeaeb}},
  doi          = {{10.1088/1748-9326/aaeaeb}},
  volume       = {{13}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}