Dynamique des flux de carbone entre l'atmosphère et des écosystèmes ouest-africains: cas des forêts et savanes sous climat soudanien au Bénin

In West Africa as elsewhere in other parts of the world, natural and anthropogenic ecosystems are the main sources for energy, building poles and livestock fodder. They probably behave like some nets carbon sinks, but there are only few studies that have focused on their carbon exchanges with the atmosphere. Preserving terrestrial ecosystems has proven essential to any emissions mitigation policy of green house gases, notably CO2. This thesis focuses on the analysis of the CO2 fluxes in three contrasting types of the ecosystem under a Sudanian climate in Benin. Specifically, it was a cultivated forest, a protected forest and a cultivated savannah.

Turbulent CO2 fluxes were measured by an eddy-covariance system placed above the ecosystems. The measurements were made during variable periods of 17 months (cultivated forest), 18 months (protected forest) and 29 months (cultivated savannah). The three studied sites have been equipped by the hydro-meteorological observatory AMMA-CATCH and the national project Ouémé 2025. The CO2 fluxes data were completed by some meteorological measurements and by an inventory of dominating species the three sites. Fluxes were examined on the basis of the two main seasons imposed by the cycle of West African Monsoon. The spatial (local and regional) and temporal (hour, seasonal, annual and inter-annual) scales were considered according to the sites.

Water was the main factor controlling the dynamic of the terrestrial West African ecosystems. At the daily scales, the radiation was the main driving variable of the net CO2 fluxes. Besides that radiation control, a clear relationship was observed between the net CO2 fluxes and the canopy conductance. A limited impact of saturation deficit was observed, notably during the afternoon. The soil moisture was the main factor governing the ecosystem respiration. However, no clear dependency of the ecosystem respiration on the temperature was observed at hourly scale. After long dry periods, the ecosystem respiration increased immediately in response to the first significant rains. The CO2 fluxes and the characteristics of the protected forest were always higher than those of the cultivated savannah at the daily and seasonal scales.

At the annual scale, while the protected forest (Bellefoungou) and cultivated savannah (Nalohou) sequestered an average of 640 ± 50 and 232 ± 27 g C m-2, respectively considering the period of the measurements, the cultivated forest was in equilibrium with 29 ± 16 g C m-2. Overall, the three studied ecosystems were more efficient during morning and wet season than during afternoon and dry season.

Finally, this study revealed that the inter-annual variability of the carbon sequestration by the cultivated savannah was mainly controlled by the ecosystem respiration variability in relation to the soil water content variation.