The persistence of carbon in the African forest understory

Hubau, Wannes; Mil, Tom De; Bulcke, Jan Van den; Phillips, Oliver L.; Ilondea, Bhély Angoboy; Acker, Joris Van; Sullivan, Martin J. P.; Nsenga, Laurent; Toirambe, Benjamin; Couralet, Camille; Banin, Lindsay F.; Begne, Serge K.; Baker, Timothy R.; Bourland, Nils; Chézeaux, Éric; Clark, Connie J.; Collins, Murray; Comiskey, J. A.; Cuní-Sanchez, Aida; Deklerck, Victor; Dierickx, Sofie; Doucet, Jean‐Louis; Ewango, Corneille E. N.; Feldpausch, Ted R.; Gilpin, Martin; Gonmadje, Christelle; Hall, Jefferson S.; Harris, David J.; Hardy, Olivier J.; Kamdem, Marie‐Noël Djuikouo; Yakusu, Emmanuel Kasongo; Lopez‐Gonzalez, Gabriela; Makana, Jean‐Remy; Malhi, Yadvinder; Mbayu, F.; Moore, Sam; Mukinzi, Jacques; Pickavance, Georgia; Poulsen, John R.; Reitsma, J.; Rousseau, Mélissa; Sonké, Bonaventure; Sunderland, Terry; Taedoumg, Hermann; Talbot, Joey; Mukendi, John Tshibamba; Umunay, Peter M.; Vleminckx, Jason; White, Lee; Zemagho, Lise; Lewis, Simon L.; Beeckman, Hans

doi:10.1038/s41477-018-0316-5

Cited by 45 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…(2018) showed that half the above‐ground living biomass in a global dataset of forest plots was stored in the largest trees, which made up 1% of the total stems. On the other hand, major components of biodiversity are neglected by using a size threshold of 10 cm d.b.h., because a substantial amount of tropical rain forest diversity exists as understorey and slender climbing plants (Cicuzza et al., 2013; Hubau et al., 2019). For palms, we estimate that c .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The global abundance of tree palms

Muscarella

Emilio

Phillips

et al. 2020

Global Ecol Biogeogr

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The global abundance of tree palms

Muscarella

Emilio

Phillips

et al. 2020

Global Ecol Biogeogr

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“…Understorey vegetation comprises a major component of plant diversity [1], which contributes to the structural complexity of forests, heterogeneous habitats for other biotic groups, water holding capacity, and nutrient retention [2]. Although understorey vegetation often contributes relatively a small portion to the biomass of overall forest ecosystems, it plays a critical role in nutrient cycling and energy flow due to the high turnover rates of understorey vegetation [1,[3][4][5][6][7]. Several studies have revealed that the abundance, diversity, and composition of understorey vegetation change temporally with stand development following stand-replacing disturbances [8], and that the forest overstorey strongly mediates understorey vegetation [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest Understorey Vegetation: Colonization and the Availability and Heterogeneity of Resources

Wang

Huang

et al. 2019

Forests

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Understorey vegetation comprises a major portion of plant diversity and contributes greatly to nutrient cycling and energy flow. This review examines the mechanisms involved in the response of understorey vegetation to stand development and the overstorey canopy following disturbances. The overall abundance and diversity of the understorey is enhanced with the availability and heterogeneity of light, soil nutrients, soil moisture, and substrates. Vascular plants are positively impacted by the availability and heterogeneity of light and soil nutrients, whereas non-vascular vegetation is more strongly influenced by colonization time, soil moisture, and substrates, and is decreased with a higher proportion of broadleaf overstorey. The availability of resources is a prominent driver toward the abundance and diversity of understorey vegetation, from the stand initiation to stem exclusion stage under a single-species dominated overstorey. However, resource heterogeneity dominates at the later stages of succession under a mixed overstorey. Climate and site conditions modify resource availability and heterogeneity in the understorey layer, but the extent of their influences requires more investigation. Forest management practices (clearcutting and partial harvesting) tend to increase light availability and heterogeneity, which facilitates the abundance and diversity of understorey vascular plants; however, these factors reduce the occurrence of non-vascular plants. Nevertheless, in the landscape context, anthropogenic disturbances homogenize environmental conditions and reduce beta-diversity, as well, the long-term effects of anthropogenic disturbances on understorey vegetation remain unclear, particularly compared with those in primary forests.

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“…In addition, there remains considerable uncertainty around the scale of necromass and its vulnerability to increasing fire incidence (Withey et al, 2018). Trends in carbon uptake can vary within the tropics, whereby forests in Africa are more resource limited and smaller, sub-canopy trees can be responsible for 20% of carbon sequestration even though they may only store 11% of stand biomass (Hubau et al, 2019). Boreal forests are known to be experiencing warming twice the rate of the global average during the twentieth century (Wolken et al, 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining Contemporary and Paleoecological Perspectives for Estimating Forest Resilience

Morel

Nogué

2019

Front. For. Glob. Change

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In the face of dramatic climate change and human pressure acting on remaining forest areas across tropical, temperate and boreal biomes, there has emerged a coordinated effort to identify and protect forests that are currently considered "intact". These forests are hypothesized to be more resilient to future abiotic perturbations than fragmented or degraded forests, and therefore, will provide more reliable carbon storage and/or biodiversity services into an uncertain future. Research in the fields of contemporary and paleoecology can offer valuable insights to enhance our ability to assess resilience of forests and whether these would be comparable across forest biomes. Contemporary ecological monitoring has been able to capture processes acting over the short-to-medium term, while paleoecological methods allow us to derive insights of the long-term processes affecting forest dynamics. Recent efforts to both identify intact forests, based on area definitions, and assess vegetation climate sensitivity globally have relied on satellite imagery analysis for the time period 2000-2013. In this paper, we compare these published datasets and do find that on average intact forests in boreal and tropical biomes are less sensitive to temperature and water availability, respectively; however, the patterns are less clear within biomes (e.g., across continents). By taking a longer perspective, through paleoecology, we present several studies that show a range of forest responses to past climatic and human disturbance, suggesting that short-term trends may not be reliable predictors of long-term resilience. We highlight that few contemporary and paleoecology studies have considered forest area when assessing resilience and those that have did find that smaller forest areas exhibited greater dynamism in species composition, which could be a proxy for declining resilience. Climatic conditions in the Anthropocene will be pushing forest systems across biomes into novel climates very rapidly and with current knowledge it is difficult to predict how forests will react in the immediate term, which is the most relevant timeframe for global efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

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The persistence of carbon in the African forest understory

Cited by 45 publications

References 38 publications

The global abundance of tree palms

The global abundance of tree palms

Forest Understorey Vegetation: Colonization and the Availability and Heterogeneity of Resources

Combining Contemporary and Paleoecological Perspectives for Estimating Forest Resilience

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