Can we set a global threshold age to define mature forests?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Can we set a global threshold age to define mature forests?

AU - Martin, Philip

AU - Jung, Martin

AU - Brearley, Francis Q.

AU - Ribbons, Relena Rose

AU - Lines, Emily R.

AU - Jacob, Aerin L.

PY - 2016/2/4

Y1 - 2016/2/4

N2 - Globally, mature forests appear to be increasing in biomass density (BD). There is disagreement whether these increases are the result of increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations or a legacy effect of previous land-use. Recently, it was suggested that a threshold of 450 years should be used to define mature forests and that many forests increasing in BD may be younger than this. However, the study making these suggestions failed to account for the interactions between forest age and climate. Here we revisit the issue to identify: (1) how climate and forest age control global forest BD and (2) whether we can set a threshold age for mature forests. Using data from previously published studies we modelled the impacts of forest age and climate on BD using linear mixed effects models. We examined the potential biases in the dataset by comparing how representative it was of global mature forests in terms of its distribution, the climate space it occupied, and the ages of the forests used. BD increased with forest age, mean annual temperature and annual precipitation. Importantly, the effect of forest age increased with increasing temperature, but the effect of precipitation decreased with increasing temperatures. The dataset was biased towards northern hemisphere forests in relatively dry, cold climates. The dataset was also clearly biased towards forests

AB - Globally, mature forests appear to be increasing in biomass density (BD). There is disagreement whether these increases are the result of increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations or a legacy effect of previous land-use. Recently, it was suggested that a threshold of 450 years should be used to define mature forests and that many forests increasing in BD may be younger than this. However, the study making these suggestions failed to account for the interactions between forest age and climate. Here we revisit the issue to identify: (1) how climate and forest age control global forest BD and (2) whether we can set a threshold age for mature forests. Using data from previously published studies we modelled the impacts of forest age and climate on BD using linear mixed effects models. We examined the potential biases in the dataset by comparing how representative it was of global mature forests in terms of its distribution, the climate space it occupied, and the ages of the forests used. BD increased with forest age, mean annual temperature and annual precipitation. Importantly, the effect of forest age increased with increasing temperature, but the effect of precipitation decreased with increasing temperatures. The dataset was biased towards northern hemisphere forests in relatively dry, cold climates. The dataset was also clearly biased towards forests

KW - Biomass, Forest, Succession, Climate, Mature forest, Carbon, REDD+, Forest recovery

U2 - 10.7717/peerj.1595

DO - 10.7717/peerj.1595

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 26870607

SN - 2167-8359

VL - 4

JO - PeerJ

JF - PeerJ

M1 - e1595

ER -