Drivers of aboveground wood production in a lowland tropical forest of West Africa: teasing apart the roles of tree density, tree diversity, soil phosphorus, and historical logging

Tropical forests currently play a key role in regulating the terrestrial carbon cycle and abating climate change by storing carbon in wood. However, there remains considerable uncertainty as to whether tropical forests will continue to act as carbon sinks in the face of increased pressure from expan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology and evolution 2016-06, Vol.6 (12), p.4004-4017
Main Authors: Jucker, Tommaso, Sanchez, Aida Cuni, Lindsell, Jeremy A., Allen, Harriet D., Amable, Gabriel S., Coomes, David A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Carbon
Carbon cycle
Carbon sinks
Climate change
Determinants of plant community diversity and structure
effective number of species
forest productivity
Forests
Human influences
Landscape
Logging
Modelling
National parks
Nutrients
Original Research
Packing density
Phosphorus
Plant diversity
Productivity
Rainforests
selective logging
Sierra Leone
Soil density
Soil nutrients
Soil structure
Soils
Stand structure
Structural equation modeling
structural equation modeling
Terrestrial environments
Trees
Tropical forests
Wood
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Summary:Tropical forests currently play a key role in regulating the terrestrial carbon cycle and abating climate change by storing carbon in wood. However, there remains considerable uncertainty as to whether tropical forests will continue to act as carbon sinks in the face of increased pressure from expanding human activities. Consequently, understanding what drives productivity in tropical forests is critical. We used permanent forest plot data from the Gola Rainforest National Park (Sierra Leone) – one of the largest tracts of intact tropical moist forest in West Africa – to explore how (1) stand basal area and tree diversity, (2) past disturbance associated with past logging, and (3) underlying soil nutrient gradients interact to determine rates of aboveground wood production (AWP). We started by statistically modeling the diameter growth of individual trees and used these models to estimate AWP for 142 permanent forest plots. We then used structural equation modeling to explore the direct and indirect pathways which shape rates of AWP. Across the plot network, stand basal area emerged as the strongest determinant of AWP, with densely packed stands exhibiting the fastest rates of AWP. In addition to stand packing density, both tree diversity and soil phosphorus content were also positively related to productivity. By contrast, historical logging activities negatively impacted AWP through the removal of large trees, which contributed disproportionately to productivity. Understanding what determines variation in wood production across tropical forest landscapes requires accounting for multiple interacting drivers – with stand structure, tree diversity, and soil nutrients all playing a key role. Importantly, our results also indicate that logging activities can have a long‐lasting impact on a forest's ability to sequester and store carbon, emphasizing the importance of safeguarding old‐growth tropical forests. What determines productivity in tropical forests remains unclear. Using repeat census data from the West African tropics, we show that variation in productivity across the landscape cannot be explained by one factor alone, but instead depends on the interacting effects of stand structure, species diversity, soil nutrients, and historical logging.
ISSN:2045-7758
2045-7758
DOI:10.1002/ece3.2175