Carbon recovery dynamics following disturbance by selective logging in Amazonian forests
- Université de la Guyane, UMR EcoFoG, France
- Cirad, UR Forests and Societies, France
- Embrapa Amazônia Oriental, Brazil
- Wageningen University, Netherlands
- University of Florida, United States
- CarbonForExpert, Switzerland
- University of Oxford, United Kingdom
- Instituto Boliviano de Investigación Forestal, Bolivia
- Embrapa Amazônia Ocidental, Brazil
- Florida International University, United States
- Embrapa Amapa, Brazil
- Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonia Peruana, Peru
- Embrapa Acre, Brazil
- University of São Paulo, Brazil
- Cirad, UMR EcoFoG, France
Abstract
When 2 Mha of Amazonian forests are disturbed by selective logging each year, more than 90 Tg of carbon (C) is emitted to the atmosphere. Emissions are then counterbalanced by forest regrowth. With an original modelling approach, calibrated on a network of 133 permanent forest plots (175 ha total) across Amazonia, we link regional differences in climate, soil and initial biomass with survivors' and recruits' C fluxes to provide Amazon-wide predictions of post-logging C recovery. We show that net aboveground C recovery over 10 years is higher in the Guiana Shield and in the west (21{plus minus}3 MgC ha-1) than in the south (12{plus minus}3 MgC ha-1) where environmental stress is high (low rainfall, high seasonality). We highlight the key role of survivors in the forest regrowth and elaborate a comprehensive map of post-disturbance C recovery potential in Amazonia.
Data availability
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Data from: Post-disturbance carbon recovery in Amazonian forestsAvailable at Dryad Digital Repository under a CC0 Public Domain Dedication.
Article and author information
Author details
Eurídice N Honorio Coronado
Funding
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-10-LABEX-0025)
- Camille Piponiot
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP: 2013/16262-4 and 2013/50718-5)
- Edson Vidal
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Susan Trumbore, Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry, Germany
Version history
- Received: September 10, 2016
- Accepted: December 8, 2016
- Accepted Manuscript published: December 20, 2016 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: January 4, 2017 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2016, Piponiot et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Carbon recovery dynamics following disturbance by selective logging in Amazonian forests
eLife 5:e21394.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.21394
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