Coarse Woody Debris in Monsoon Evergreen Broad-leaved Forests of Dinghushan Nature Reserve

Abstract

Coarse woody debris (CWD) plays important roles in forest structure and biogeochemical element fluxes between different parts within forest ecosystem, and affects the abundance and distribution of many organisms. Compared with the similar studies in temperate and tropical rain forest, CWD storage, annual increment, its structure and ecological functions are poorly documented in monsoon evergreen broad-leaved forests (MEBF) near the tropic of cancer. In this paper, the amount of storage, annual increment of CWD was quantified in an old-growth MEBF at the Dinghushan Nature Reserve, South China. Based on inventory of all trees in a 1-ha pennanent plot carried out in 1992,1994,and 1999, we calculated CWD storage of this community. For sound standing and fallen dead tree, their stocks were separately calculated for bole, branch, leaf, and root using respective regression equations. For stumps, the stocks were calculated based on their volume and average density.