Abstract
Forest plantations have a large potential for carbon sequestration, playing an important role in the global carbon cycle. However, despite the large amount of research carried out worldwide, the absolute contribution of forest plantations is still incomplete for some parts of the world. To help bridge this gap, we calculated the amount of C stock in three fast growing forest species in Chile. Carbon pools in above-ground and below-ground biomass, forest floor, and soil were considered for this analysis. Across the plantation forests of Chile, carbon accumulated in the above-ground biomass was 181–212 Mg · ha−1 for Pinus radiata, 147–180 Mg · ha−1 for Eucalyptus nitens, and 95–117 Mg · ha−1 for Eucalyptus globulus (age 20–24 years for P. radiata and 10–14 years for Eucalyptus). Total C stocks were for 343 Mg · ha−1 for P. radiata, 352 Mg · ha−1 for E. nitens, and 254 Mg · ha−1 for E. globulus, also at the end of a typical rotation. The carbon pool in the forest floor was found to be significantly lower (less than 4% of the total) when compared to the other pools and showed large spatial variability. Our results agree with other studies showing that 30–50% of the total C stock is stored in the soil. The baseline data will be valuable for modelling C storage changes under different management regimes (changes in species, rotation length and stocking) and for different future climates. Given the contribution of soils to total carbon stocks, special attention should be paid to forest management activities that affect the soil organic carbon pool.
Highlights
Global climate is changing: air and subsurface ocean temperatures are rising due to greenhouse gases accumulating at the Earth’s atmosphere [1,2]
Thereby, we ask the following research questions: (1) How are C stocks distributed among the four C pools? (2) How does C in above-ground biomass vary with species and forest age? (3) What is the capacity of forest plantations to store C across the different forest regions of Chile? and (4) How does the capacity of forests to store C vary with climate and soil type? We aim to answer these questions using a data-driven approach, to establish a 2019 baseline for the C stored in managed forests of Chile by component, and to understand how C storage varies across regions, climate, and soil types
Below-ground biomass C pool did not differ between Pinus radiata (PIRA) and EUNI, (36.2 and 33.0 Mg · ha−1 ) but was lower for Eucalyptus globulus Labill (EUGL) (22.0 Mg · ha−1 )
Summary
Global climate is changing: air and subsurface ocean temperatures are rising due to greenhouse gases accumulating at the Earth’s atmosphere [1,2] These global temperature increases cannot be explained by natural variations alone without considering the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations [3]. Afforestation and reforestation in managed forests worldwide play a key role in regulating the global C cycle and are relevant options for climate change mitigation [6]. In both cases, carbon pools and carbon sequestration are increased, especially in degraded or non-forested areas. Because climate is changing, understanding the role of managed forests across different site conditions, in controlling the fate of land carbon uptake for future climate will be critical for C projections [9,10,11]
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