[en] 1. Regional above-ground biomass estimates for tropical moist forests remain highly inaccurate mostly because they are based on extrapolations from a few plots scattered across a limited range of soils and other environmental conditions. When such conditions impact biomass, the estimation is biased. The effect of soil types on biomass has especially yielded controversial results.
2. We investigated the relationship between above-ground biomass and soil type in undisturbed moist forests in the Central African Republic. We tested the effects of soil texture, as a surrogate for soil resources availability and physical constraints (soil depth and hydromorphy) on biomass. Forest inventory data were collected for trees ≥20 cm stem diameter in 2754 0.5 ha plots scattered over 4888 km². The plots contained 224 taxons, of which 209 were identified to species. Soil types were characterized from a 1:1 000 000 scale soil map. Species-specific values for wood density were extracted from the CIRAD’s data base of wood technological properties.
3. We found that basal area and biomass differ in their responses to soil type, ranging from 17.8 m² ha-1 (217.5 t ha-1) to 22.3 m² ha-1 (273.3 t ha-1). While shallow and hydromorphic soils support forests with both low stem basal area and low biomass, forests on deep resource-poor soils are typically low in basal area but as high in biomass as forests on deep resource-rich soils. We demonstrated that the environmental filtering of slow growing dense-wooded species on resource-poor soils compensates for the low basal area, and we discuss whether this filtering effect is due to low fertility or to low water reserve.
4. Synthesis. We showed that soil physical conditions constrained the amount of biomass stored in tropical moist forests. Contrary to previous reports, our results suggest that biomass is similar on resource-poor and resource-rich soils. This finding highlights both the importance of taking into account soil characteristics and species wood density when trying to predict regional patterns of biomass. Our findings have implications for the evaluation of biomass stocks in tropical forests, in the context of the international negotiations on climate change.
Research Center/Unit :
Centre de coopération internation pour la recherche agronomique et le développement - CIRAD
Environmental filtering of dense-wooded species controls above-ground biomass stored in African moist forests
Alternative titles :
[en] Le filtrage environnementaledes espèces d'arbres à bois dense controle la biomasse aérienne ligneuse contenues dans les forêts tropicales humides africaines
Almeida, J.C.R., Laclau, J.-P., Gonçalves, J.L.M., Ranger, J. and Saint-André, L. (2010) A positive growth response to NaCl applications in Eucalyptus plantations established on K-deficient soils. Forest Ecology and Management, 259, 1786-1795.
APG II (2003) An update of the Angiosperm phylogeny group classification for the families of flowering plants. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 14, 399-436.
Baccini, A., Laporte, N., Goetz, S.J., Sun, M. and Dong, H. (2008) A first map of tropical Africa's above-ground biomass derived from satellite imagery. Environmental Research Letters, 3, 1-9.
Bohlman, S.A., Laurance, W.F., Laurance, S.G., Nascimento, H.E.M., Fearnside, P.M. and Andrade, A. (2008) Importance of soils, topography and geographic distance in structuring central Amazonian tree communities. Journal of Vegetation Science, 19, 863-874.
Boulvert, Y. (1983) Carte Pédologique de la République centrafricaine à 1:1000000. Editions de I'ORSTOM, Paris.
Boulvert, Y. (1986) Carte Phytogéographique de la République centrafricaine (feuille ouest - feuille est) à 1:1000000. Editions de I'ORSTOM, Paris.
Boulvert, Y. (1987) Carte oro-hydrographique de la République centrafricaine (feuille ouest - feuille est) à 1:1000000. Editions de l'ORSTOM, Paris.
Boulvert, Y. (1996) Etude géomorphologique de la République centrafricaine. Carte à 1:1000000 en deux feuilles Ouest et Est. Notice explicative n°110, Editions de l'ORSTOM, Paris.
ter Braak, C.J.F. (1986) Canonical correspondence analysis: a new eigenvector technique for multivariate direct gradient analysis. Ecology, 67, 1167-1179.
Brown, S.A., Gillespie, J.R. and Lugo, A.E. (1989) Biomass estimation methods for tropical forests with applications to forest inventory data. Forest Science, 35, 881-902.
Brown, I.F., Martinelli, L.A., Thomas, W.W., Moreira, M.Z., Ferreira, C.A.C. and Victoria, R.A. (1995) Uncertainty in the biomass of Amazonian forests: an example from Rondônia, Brazil. Forest Ecology and Management, 75, 175-189.
Canadell, J., Jackson, R.B., Ehleringer, J.B., Mooney, H.A., Sala, O.E. and Schulze, E.D. (1996) Maximum rooting depth of vegetation types at the global scale. Oecologia, 108, 583-595.
Chapin, F.S. (1980) The mineral nutrition of wild plants. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 11, 233-260.
Chave, J., Condit, R., Aguilar, S., Hernandez, A., Lao, S. and Perez, R. (2004) Error propagation and scaling for tropical forest biomass estimates. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, 359, 409-420.
Chave, J., Andalo, C., Brown, S., Cairns, M.A., Chambers, J.Q., Eamus, D. et al. (2005) Tree allometry and improved estimation of carbon stocks and balance in tropical forests. Oecologia, 145, 87-99.
Chave, J., Coomes, D., Jansen, S., Lewis, S.L., Swenson, N.G. and Zanne, A.E. (2009) Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Ecology Letters, 12, 351-366.
Clark, D.B. and Clark, D.A. (2000) Landscape-scale variation in forest structure and biomass in a tropical rain forest. Forest Ecology and Management, 137, 185-198.
Couteron, P., Pélissier, R., Mapaga, D., Molino, J.F. and Teillier, L. (2003) Drawing ecological insights from a management-oriented forest inventory in French Guiana. Forest Ecology and Management, 172, 89-108.
De Castilho, C.V., Magnusson, W.E., de Araujo, R.N.O., Luizao, R.C.C., Luizao, F.J., Lima, A.P. and Higuchi, N. (2006) Variation in aboveground tree live biomass in a central Amazonian forest: effects of soil and topography. Forest Ecology and Management, 234, 85-96.
Delcamp, M., Gourlet-Fleury, S., Flores, O. and Garnier, E. (2008) Can functional classification of tropical trees predict population dynamics after disturbance? Journal of Vegetation Science, 19, 209-220.
DeWalt, S.J. and Chave, J. (2004) Structure and biomass of four lowland Neotropical forests. Biotropica, 36, 7-19.
EFBC (2006) Etat des Forêts du Bassin du Congo.
FAO (2005) Evaluation des Ressources Forestières Nationales du Cameroun 2003-04. (République du Cameroun, Ministère des forêts et de la faune). FAO, Yaoundé.
Fearnside, P.M. (1985) Brazil's Amazon forest and the global carbon problem. Interciencia, 10, 179-186.
Franquin, P., Diziain, R., Cointepas, J.P. and Boulvert, Y. (1988) Agroclimatologie du Centrafrique. Editions de I'ORSTOM, Paris.
Gaston, G., Brown, S., Lorenzini, M. and Singh, K.D. (1998) State and change in carbon pools in the forests of tropical Africa. Global Change Biology, 4, 97-114.
van Gelder, H.A., Poorter, L. and Sterck, F.J. (2006) Wood mechanics, allometry and life-history variation in a tropical rain forest tree community. New Phytologist, 171, 367-378.
Gibbs, H.K., Brown, S., Niles, J.O. and Foley, J.A. (2007) Monitoring and estimating tropical forest carbon stocks: making REDD a reality. Environmental Research Letters, 2, 1-13.
Givnish, T. (2002) Adaptive significance of evergreen vs. deciduous leaves: solving the triple paradox. Silva Fennica, 36, 703-743.
Gond, V., Pennec, A., Fayolle, A. and Gourlet-Fleury, S. (2010) Using MODIS time series to characterize the annual dynamics of photosynthesis in tropical forests of Central Africa. International Forestry Review, 12, 329.
Grainger, A. (2008) Difficulties in tracking the long-term global trend in tropical forest area. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105, 818-823.
Gregory, P.J. (2006) Roots, rhizosphere and soil: the route to a better understanding of soil science? European Journal of Soil Science, 57, 2-12.
Grime, J.P. (1977) Evidence for the existence of three primary strategies in plants and its relevance to ecological and evolutionary biology. American Naturalist, 111, 1169-1194.
Grime, J.P., Thompson, K., Hunt, R., Hodgson, J.G., Cornelissen, J.H.C., Rorison, I.H. et al. (1997) Integrated screening validates primary axes of specialisation in plants. Oikos, 79, 259-281.
Hacke, U.G., Sperry, J.S., Pockman, W.T., Davis, S.D. and McCulloh, K.A. (2001) Trends in wood density and structure are linked to prevention of xylem implosion by negative pressure. Oecologia, 126, 457-461.
Houghton, R. (2005) Aboveground forest biomass and the global carbon balance. Global Change Biology, 11, 945-958.
Houghton, R.A., Lawrence, K.T., Hackler, J.L. and Brown, S. (2001) The spatial distribution of forest biomass in the Brazilian Amazon: a comparison of estimates. Global Change Biology, 7, 731-746.
Humbel, F.X. (1978) Caractérisation, par des mesures physiques, hydriques et d'enracinement, des sols de Guyane française à dynamique de l'eau superficielle. Sciences du Sol, 21, 83-94.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2000) Land Use, Land Use Change And Forestry. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2006) 2006 IPCC guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Prepared by the National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme (eds H.S. Eggleston, Buendia L., K. Miwa, T. Ngara and K. Tanabe), Vol.4 (AFOLU), p. 4.53. IGES, Japan.
Ishida, A., Nakano, T., Yazaki, K., Matsuki, S., Koike, N., Lauenstein, D.L., Shimizu, M. and Yamashita, N. (2008) Coordination between leaf and stem traits related to leaf carbon gain and hydraulics across 32 drought-tolerant angiosperms. Oecologia, 156, 193-202.
IUSS Working Group WRB (2006) World Reference Base For Soil Resources 2006. FAO, Rome.
Jirka, S., McDonald, A.J., Johnson, M.S., Feldpausch, T.R., Couto, E.G. and Riha, S.J. (2007) Relationships between soil hydrology and forest structure and composition in the southern Brazilian Amazon. Journal of Vegetation Science, 18, 183-194.
Laurance, W.F., Fearnside, P.M., Laurance, S.G., Delamonica, P., Lovejoy, T.E., Rankin de Merona, J.M., Chambers, J.Q. and Gascon, C. (1999) Relationship between soils and Amazon forest biomass: a landscape-scale study. Forest Ecology and Management, 118, 127-138.
Lewis, S.L., Lopez-Gonzalez, G., Sonke, B., Affum-Baffoe, K., Baker, T.R., Ojo, L.O. et al. (2009) Increasing carbon storage in intact African tropical forests. Nature, 457, 1003-1007.
Malhi, Y., D. Wood, D., Baker, T.R., Wright, J., Phillips, O.L., Cochrane, T. et al. (2006) The regional variation of aboveground live biomass in old-growth Amazonian forests. Global Change Biology, 12, 1107-1138.
Muller-Landau, H.C. (2004) lnterspecific and inter-site variation in wood specific gravity of tropical trees. Biotropica, 36, 20-32.
Nascimento, H.E.M., Laurance, W.F., Condit, R., Laurance, S.G., D'Angelo, S. and Andrade, A. (2005) Demographic and life-history correlates for Amazonian trees. Journal of Vegetation Science, 16, 625-634.
Nasi, R., Mayaux, P., Devers, D., Bayol, N., Eba'a Atyi, R., Mugnier, A., Cassagne, B., Billand, A. and Sonwa, D. (2008) Un apercu des stocks de carbone et leurs variations dans les forêts du basin du Congo. The Forests of the Congo Basin - State of the forests 2008 (eds C. de Wasseige, D. Devers, P. de Marcken, R. Eba'a Atyi, R. Nasi R and P. Mayaux), pp. 199-216. Publications Office of the European Union, 2009, Luxembourg.
Paoli, G.D., Curran, L.M. and Slik, J.W.F. (2008) Soil nutrients affect spatial patterns of aboveground biomass and emergent tree density in southwestern Borneo. Oecologia, 155, 287-299.
Paoli, G.D., Curran, L.M. and Zak, D.R. (2006) Soil nutrients and beta diversity in the Bornean Dipterocarpaceae: evidence for niche partitioning by tropical rain forest trees. Journal of Ecology, 94, 157-170.
Pélissier, R. and Couteron, P. (2007) An operational, additive framework for species diversity partitioning and beta-diversity analysis. Journal of Ecology, 95, 294-300.
Pendry, C.A. and Proctor, J. (1997) Altitudinal zonation of rain forest on Bukit Belalong, Brunei: soils, forest structure and floristics. Journal of Tropical Ecology, 13, 221-241.
Phillips, O.L., Malhi, Y., Higuchi, N., Laurance, W.F., Nunez, P.V., Vasquez, R.M., Laurance, S.G., Ferreira, L.V., Stern, M., Brown, S. and Grace, J. (1998) Changes in the carbon balance of tropical forests: evidence from long-term plots. Science, 282, 439-442.
Picard, N. and Gourlet-Fleury, S. (2008) Manuel de référence pour l'installation de dispositifs permanents en forêt de production dans le Bassin du Congo. COMIFAC, Yaoundé.
Poorter, H. and Garnier, E. (1999) Ecological significance of inherent variation in relative growth rate and its components. Handbook of Functional Plant Ecology (eds F.I. Pugnaire and F. Valladares), pp. 82-120, Marcel Dekker, New York.
Potts, M.D., Ashton, P.S., Kaufman, L.S. and Plotkin, J.B. (2002) Habitat patterns in tropical rain forests: a comparison of 105 plots in northwest Borneo. Ecology, 83, 2782-2797.
R Development Core Team (2009) R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. ISBN 3-900051-07-0, URL.
Rejou-Mechain, M., Pélissier, R., Gourlet-Fleury, S., Couteron, P., Nasi, R. and Thompson, J.D. (2008) Regional variation in tropical forest tree species composition in the Central African Republic: an assessment based on inventories by forest companies. Journal of Tropical Ecology, 24, 663-674.
Russo, S.E., Davies, S.J., King, D.A. and Tan, S. (2005) Soil-related performance variation and distributions of tree species in a Bornean rain forest. Journal of Ecology, 93, 879-889.
Russo, S.E., Brown, P., Tan, S. and Davies, S.J. (2008) Interspecific demographic trade-offs and soil-related habitat associations of tree species along resource gradients. Journal of Ecology, 96, 192-203.
Saatchi, S.R., Houghton, R.A., Dos Santos Alvala, R.C., Soares, J.V. and Yu, Y. (2007) Distribution of above-ground live biomass in the Amazon basin. Global Change Biology, 13, 816-837.
Slik, J., Aiba, S.I., Brearley, F.Q., Cannon, C.H., Forshed, O., Kitayama, K. et al. (2010) Environmental correlates of tree biomass, basal area wood specific gravity and stem density gradients in Borneo's tropical forests. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 19, 50-60.
Ter Steege, H. and Hammond, D. (2001) Character convergence, diversity and disturbance in tropical rain forest in Guyana. Ecology, 82, 3197-3212.
Ter Steege, H., Pitman, N.C.A., Phillips, O.L., Chave, J., Sabatier, D., Duque, A., Molino, J.F., Prevost, M.F., Spichiger, R., Castellanos, H., von Hildebrand, P. and Vasquez, R. (2006) Continental-scale patterns of canopy tree composition and function across Amazonia. Nature, 443, 444-447.
Tuomisto, H., Ruokolainen, K. and Yli-Halla, M. (2003) Dispersal, environment, and floristic variation of western Amazonian forests. Science, 299, 241-244.
Turner, I.M. (2001) The Ecology of Trees in the Tropical Rain Forest. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Vitousek, P.M. and Sanford R.L., Jr. (1986) Nutrient cycling in moist tropical forest. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 17, 137-167.
Wang, Y., Titus, S.J. and LeMay, V.M. (1998) Relationships between tree slenderness coefficients and tree or stand characteristics for major species in boreal mixedwood forests. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 28, 1171-1183.
Welch, B.L. (1951) On the comparison of several mean values: an alternative approach. Biometrika, 38, 330-336.
White, F. (1983) The vegetation of Africa, a descriptive memoir to accompany the UNESCO/AETFAT/UNSO vegetation map of Africa. UNESCO, Natural Resources Research, 20, 1-356.
Yamada, T., Suzuki, E., Yamakura, T. and Tan, S. (2005) Tap-root depth of tropical seedlings in relation to species-specific edaphic preferences. Journal of Tropical Ecology, 21, 155-160.
Zhang, Y., Borders, B.E. and Bailey, R.L. (2002) Derivation, fitting and implication of a compatible stem taper-volume-weight system for intensively managed, fast growing loblolly pine. Forest Science, 48, 595-607.
