Abstract
Abstract. Tropical montane forests (TMFs) are recognized for the provision of hydrological services and the protection of biodiversity, but their role in carbon storage is not well understood. We synthesized published observations (n = 94) of above-ground biomass (AGB) from forest inventory plots in TMFs (defined here as forests between 23.5° N and 23.5° S with elevations ≥ 1000 m a.s.l.). We found that mean (median) AGB in TMFs is 271 (254) t per hectare of land surface. We demonstrate that AGB declines moderately with both elevation and slope angle but that TMFs store substantial amounts of biomass, both at high elevations (up to 3500 m) and on steep slopes (slope angles of up to 40°). We combined remotely sensed data sets of forest cover with high resolution data of elevation to show that 75% of the global planimetric (horizontal) area of TMF are on steep slopes (slope angles greater than 27°). We used our remote sensed data sets to demonstrate that this prevalence of steep slopes results in the global land surface area of TMF (1.22 million km2) being 40% greater than the planimetric area that is the usual basis for reporting global land surface areas and remotely sensed data. Our study suggests that TMFs are likely to be a greater store of carbon than previously thought, highlighting the need for conservation of the remaining montane forests.
Highlights
Tropical montane forests (TMFs) are important for the provision of ecosystem services water (Martínez et al, 2009) and biodiversity (Martínez et al, 2009; Gentry, 1992), but their role in global carbon storage is less well known (Bruijnzeel and Veneklaas, 1998)
Knowledge of above-ground biomass (AGB) storage in TMFs is still quite poor: persistent cloud cover and steep terrain makes remote sensing difficult (Simard et al, 2011; Castel et al, 2001), there is a paucity of plot-based data which are difficult to acquire on steep slopes (Malhi et al, 2006), and few attempts have been made to synthesize the available observations
We synthesized data of above-ground biomass (AGB) in tropical montane forests (TMFs) from forest plot inventory studies located in undisturbed forest
Summary
Tropical montane forests (TMFs) are important for the provision of ecosystem services water (Martínez et al, 2009) and biodiversity (Martínez et al, 2009; Gentry, 1992), but their role in global carbon storage is less well known (Bruijnzeel and Veneklaas, 1998). In lowland tropical forests there have been recent advances in our understanding of above-ground biomass (AGB) storage, through synthesis of data from forest inventory plots (Baker et al, 2004; Malhi et al, 2006; Gibbs et al, 2007; Saatchi et al, 2007; Slik et al, 2010; de Castilho et al, 2006; Lewis et al, 2013) and application of remote sensing techniques (Asner et al, 2010; Saatchi et al, 2011; Baccini et al, 2012; Simard et al, 2011). Our study focuses on synthesizing AGB from forest inventory plots, since insufficient data are available to include below-ground carbon as a parameter in our analysis
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