Carbon dynamics and environmental controls of a hilly tea plantation in Southeast China

Abstract

Tea plantations are widely distributed and continuously expanding across subtropical China in recent years. However, carbon flux exchanges from tea plantation ecosystems are poorly understood at the ecosystem level. In this study, we use the eddy covariance technique to quantify the magnitude and temporal variations of the net ecosystem exchange (NEE) in tea plantation in Southeast China over four years (2014–2017). The result showed that the tea plantation was a net carbon sink, with an annual NEE that ranged from −182.40 to −301.51 g C/m2, which was a much lower carbon sequestration potential than other ecosystems in subtropical China. Photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) explained the highest proportion of the variation in NEE and gross primary productivity (GPP) (for NEE: F = 389.89, p < .01; for GPP: F = 1,018.04, p < .01), and air temperature (Ta) explained the highest proportion of the variation in ecosystem respiration (RE) (F = 13,141.81, p < .01). The strong pruning activity in April not only reduced the carbon absorption capacity but also provided many plant residues for respiration, which switched the tea plantation to a carbon source from April to June. Suppression of NEE at higher air temperatures was due to the decrease in GPP more than the decrease in RE, which indicated that future global warming may transform this subtropical tea plantation from a carbon sink to carbon source.

Estimated Stored Carbon Stock in Tea Plantation at Various Elevation

“…Tanaman teh merupakan salah satu tanaman perkebunan yang mampu mengurangi karbon dioksida di udara. Tanaman teh menyerap karbon dioksida dari udara dalam proses fotosintesis, kemudian menyimpannya dalam bentuk biomassa yang tersebar di akar, batang, dan daun, maupun pada serasah (Pramanik dan Phukan 2020;Rokhmah, Wibowo, dan Supriadi 2016;Pang et al 2019). Hasil penelitian yang dilakukan di perkebunan Pagilaran menunjukkan bahwa cadangan karbon tanaman teh ratarata 32,87 toh C/ha (Hardjo et al, 2014).…”

Comparison and Optimization of Water Conservation Function in Natural Forests and Tea Plantations in a Headwater Catchment, Taihu Lake Basin

“…The planting area in the tea plantation in the Shahe Reservoir catchment has expanded by approximately seven times from 3120 ha to 21,105 ha in the past 20 years. Meanwhile, this rapid expansion of tea plantations has significantly affected the regional water cycle in the headwater region [28,29]. The water conservation function in the headwater region is suffering from a continuous decline.…”

Responses of carbon exchange characteristics to meteorological factors, phenology, and extreme events in a rubber plantation of Danzhou, Hainan: evidence based on multi-year data

“…Tropical forests, including rainforests, deciduous forests, wetlands, and mangroves, have a high CO 2 uptake (Aguilos et al, 2018;Rodda et al, 2021;Sun et al, 2021;Dalmagro et al, 2022). Most of the studies that have been done on plantation carbon exchange have been conducted in subtropical and temperate regions, bamboo plantations (Song et al, 2017;Chen et al, 2018), hilly tea plantations (Pang et al, 2019), and Pinaceae plantations (Han et al, 2022).…”