The largest European forest carbon sinks are in the Dinaric Alps old-growth forests: comparison of direct measurements and standardised approaches

IF 3.9 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Carbon Balance and Management Pub Date : 2024-05-13 DOI:10.1186/s13021-024-00262-4

Bono Alessia, Alberti Giorgio, Berretti Roberta, Curovic Milic, Dukic Vojislav, Motta Renzo

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background

Carbon (C) sink and stock are among the most important ecosystem services provided by forests in climate change mitigation policies. In this context, old-growth forests constitute an essential reference point for the development of close-to-nature silviculture, including C management techniques. Despite their small extent in Europe, temperate old-growth forests are assumed to be among the most prominent in terms of biomass and C stored. However, monitoring and reporting of C stocks is still poorly understood. To better understand the C stock amount and distribution in temperate old-growth forests, we estimated the C stock of two old-growth stands in the Dinaric Alps applying different assessment methods, including direct and indirect approaches (e.g., field measurements and allometric equations vs. IPCC standard methods). This paper presents the quantification and the distribution of C across the five main forest C pools (i.e., aboveground, belowground, deadwood, litter and soil) in the study areas and the differences between the applied methods.

Results

We report a very prominent C stock in both study areas (507 Mg C ha^− 1), concentrated in a few large trees (36% of C in 5% of trees). Moreover, we found significant differences in C stock estimation between direct and indirect methods. Indeed, the latter tended to underestimate or overestimate depending on the pool considered.

Conclusions

Comparison of our results with previous studies and data collected in European forests highlights the prominence of temperate forests, among which the Dinaric Alps old-growth forests are the largest. These findings provide an important benchmark for the development of future approaches to the management of the European temperate forests. However, further and deeper research on C stock and fluxes in old-growth stands is of prime importance to understand the potential and limits of the climate mitigation role of forests.

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欧洲最大的森林碳汇位于第纳尔阿尔卑斯山的原始森林：直接测量与标准化方法的比较。

背景：在气候变化减缓政策中，碳汇和碳储量是森林提供的最重要的生态系统服务之一。在此背景下，原始森林是发展亲近自然造林（包括碳管理技术）的重要参考点。尽管温带古老森林在欧洲的分布范围较小，但就生物量和碳储量而言，它们被认为是最突出的森林之一。然而，人们对碳储量的监测和报告仍然知之甚少。为了更好地了解温带古老森林的碳储量和分布情况，我们采用了不同的评估方法，包括直接和间接方法（如实地测量和异速方程与 IPCC 标准方法），对第纳尔阿尔卑斯山的两个古老林分的碳储量进行了估算。本文介绍了研究地区五大森林碳库（即地上、地下、枯枝落叶、枯落物和土壤）中碳的量化和分布情况，以及不同评估方法之间的差异：我们报告了两个研究区域的主要碳储量（507 Mg C ha-1），这些碳储量集中在几棵大树上（5% 的树木中含有 36% 的碳）。此外，我们还发现直接法和间接法对碳储量的估算存在显著差异。事实上，后者往往会低估或高估碳储量，这取决于所考虑的碳库：将我们的研究结果与之前的研究以及在欧洲森林中收集的数据进行比较，可以发现温带森林的重要性，其中迪纳拉阿尔卑斯山的原始森林面积最大。这些发现为未来欧洲温带森林管理方法的制定提供了重要基准。然而，进一步深入研究古老林分中的碳储量和通量对于了解森林减缓气候作用的潜力和局限性至关重要。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Carbon Balance and Management Environmental Science-Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

CiteScore

7.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

14 weeks

期刊介绍： Carbon Balance and Management is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal that encompasses all aspects of research aimed at developing a comprehensive policy relevant to the understanding of the global carbon cycle. The global carbon cycle involves important couplings between climate, atmospheric CO2 and the terrestrial and oceanic biospheres. The current transformation of the carbon cycle due to changes in climate and atmospheric composition is widely recognized as potentially dangerous for the biosphere and for the well-being of humankind, and therefore monitoring, understanding and predicting the evolution of the carbon cycle in the context of the whole biosphere (both terrestrial and marine) is a challenge to the scientific community. This demands interdisciplinary research and new approaches for studying geographical and temporal distributions of carbon pools and fluxes, control and feedback mechanisms of the carbon-climate system, points of intervention and windows of opportunity for managing the carbon-climate-human system. Carbon Balance and Management is a medium for researchers in the field to convey the results of their research across disciplinary boundaries. Through this dissemination of research, the journal aims to support the work of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) and to provide governmental and non-governmental organizations with instantaneous access to continually emerging knowledge, including paradigm shifts and consensual views.