Old-growth forests as global carbon sinks (original) (raw)

Nature volume 455, pages 213–215 (2008) Cite this article

Abstract

Old-growth forests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere1,2 at rates that vary with climate and nitrogen deposition3. The sequestered carbon dioxide is stored in live woody tissues and slowly decomposing organic matter in litter and soil4. Old-growth forests therefore serve as a global carbon dioxide sink, but they are not protected by international treaties, because it is generally thought that ageing forests cease to accumulate carbon5,6. Here we report a search of literature and databases for forest carbon-flux estimates. We find that in forests between 15 and 800 years of age, net ecosystem productivity (the net carbon balance of the forest including soils) is usually positive. Our results demonstrate that old-growth forests can continue to accumulate carbon, contrary to the long-standing view that they are carbon neutral. Over 30 per cent of the global forest area is unmanaged primary forest, and this area contains the remaining old-growth forests7. Half of the primary forests (6 × 108 hectares) are located in the boreal and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. On the basis of our analysis, these forests alone sequester about 1.3 ± 0.5 gigatonnes of carbon per year. Thus, our findings suggest that 15 per cent of the global forest area, which is currently not considered when offsetting increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, provides at least 10 per cent of the global net ecosystem productivity8. Old-growth forests accumulate carbon for centuries and contain large quantities of it. We expect, however, that much of this carbon, even soil carbon9, will move back to the atmosphere if these forests are disturbed.

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Figure 1: Changes in carbon fluxes as a function of age.

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Figure 2: Biomass accumulation as a function of stand density.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all site investigators, their funding agencies and the various regional flux networks (Afriflux, AmeriFlux, AsiaFlux, CarboAfrica, CarboEuropeIP, ChinaFlux, Fluxnet-Canada, KoFlux, LBA, NECC, OzFlux, TCOS-Siberia and USCCC), and the Fluxnet project, whose support was essential for obtaining our measurements. S.L. was supported by CoE ECO UA-Methusalem and the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen) with a post-doctoral fellowship and a research grant. A.K. was supported by the European Union with a Marie Curie fellowship, and B.E.L. was supported by the regional North American Carbon Program project ORCA (US Department of Energy, Terrestrial Carbon Program, award number DE-FG02-04ER63917). E.-D.S. was supported by DFG-Exploratories. Additional funding for this study was received from CarboEuropeIP (project number GOCE-CT-2003-505572) and Ameriflux.

Author Contributions S.L., B.E.L., A.K. and P.C. compiled the data set. S.L., A.B. and D.H wrote code and analysed the data. S.L., E.-D.S., A.K., B.E.L., P.C. and J.G. designed the analyses and wrote the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, 2610 Wilrijk, Belgium
    Sebastiaan Luyssaert
  2. College of Forestry, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331-5752, USA ,
    Sebastiaan Luyssaert & Beverly E. Law
  3. Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, 07701 Jena, Germany
    E. -Detlef Schulze, Annett Börner & Dominik Hessenmöller
  4. ETH Zürich, Institute of Plant Sciences, CH-8092 Zürich, Switzerland
    Alexander Knohl
  5. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, IPSL-LSCE, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, 91191 Gif sur Yvette Cedex, France ,
    Philippe Ciais
  6. School of GeoSciences, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JN, UK
    John Grace

Authors

  1. Sebastiaan Luyssaert
  2. E. -Detlef Schulze
  3. Annett Börner
  4. Alexander Knohl
  5. Dominik Hessenmöller
  6. Beverly E. Law
  7. Philippe Ciais
  8. John Grace

Corresponding author

Correspondence toSebastiaan Luyssaert.

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Luyssaert, S., Schulze, ED., Börner, A. et al. Old-growth forests as global carbon sinks.Nature 455, 213–215 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07276

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  1. Antonello Lobianco 25 April 2018, 13:04
    Hello, I think the main question is to find where the carbon is going ?
    No-one claims that "forests" are carbon neutral. The biomass that forest produces is used by insects, animals and other heterotrophic organisms of the ecosystem. It is at that level that the ecosystem is almost neutral.
    "Almost", because some carbon is stored in the soil for longer periods. But how much? The study you cite (Zhou et al) measured soil organic carbon on a "mature" forest and (figure 1) they got ~2800 gC/m^2 in 1980 and ~4000 gC/m^2 in 2003. That corresponds to a sequestration of ~0.5 tC/ha/y.
    How this compare to a growing forest ?
    Let's take the example of French forests.. at national level inventoried data tell us that they growth at about 6 m^3/ha, that if we use a 0.25 tC/t m^3 wood conversion factor, it leads us to a sequestration of 1.5 tC/ha/y.
    While this value includes only the main tree trunks (no branches, roots, soil organic carbon) and "national level" means all kind of forests (including old and Mediterranean low productivity ones) it is still at least 3 times higher than the organic carbon stored in the soil by old forests.

Editorial Summary

Don't cut into old wood

It has long been assumed that ageing forests cease to accumulate carbon, and become carbon neutral. They are therefore not recognized for 'forest credits' in treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol. Now an extensive literature and database search for forest carbon-flux estimates shows that the net carbon balance of ageing forests is usually positive. The findings suggest that old-growth forests can continue to accumulate carbon, and that they contribute at least 10% of global net ecosystem productivity. Much of this carbon, even soil carbon, will move back to the atmosphere if these forests are disturbed, so it would make sense for carbon accounting rules to give credit for leaving old forests intact.

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