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Forests
Special Issues
Greenhouse Gas Fluxes from Below and Aboveground Forest Deadwood
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Greenhouse Gas Fluxes from Below and Aboveground Forest Deadwood

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (8 May 2015) | Viewed by 23468

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Ir. Maarten Nieuwenhuis

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Guest Editor
UCD Forestry, School of Agriculture & Food Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
Interests: forest management; forest planning; forest harvesting; forest modeling; decision support systems
Dr. Brian Tobin

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Agriculture & Food Science and UCD Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
Interests: forest ecosystem carbon cycling; tree biomass allocation; woody decomposition; forest ecology; silviculture; disturbance effects; conservation of forest; genetic resources

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Forest ecosystems represent the largest terrestrial carbon (C) sink on earth and as such recognised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as an effective aspect of strategy for offsetting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Deadwood represents a significant portion of the forest C store (7 to 20% of total forest C) which can be readily modified through forest management practices. However, stocks and stock changes in this pool have been much less documented than the live biomass pools.

Fluxes from fine debris and litter are often treated as significant components of soil respiration when estimating forest carbon budgets, however larger debris is often overlooked or very roughly estimated despite its role as a long-lived C-pool component. Although forests have been accurate estimation of GHG fluxes from forest deadwood is essential for assessing its contribution to current and long-term C-balances, but also increasingly to gain an understanding of its reaction to changes in climate. Since the C density of detrital pools increases in forests following disturbance events (e.g. storm, insect and disease infestation), which themselves are expected to increase in frequency in the future, gas fluxes from forest deadwood can only be expected to increase in importance.

An understanding of the nature of forest deadwood GHG efflux and its relation to climatic drivers and variables is required before management of the pool can be expected to be anticipatory and supportive of the longterm sustainability of forests in a world of altering climate.

Prof. Dr. Ir. Maarten Nieuwenhuis
Dr. Brian Tobin
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • woody debris
  • decomposition
  • greenhouse gas fluxes
  • climate change mitigation
  • disturbance

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 1560 KiB  
Article
Warm and Fertile Sub-Humid Conditions Enhance Litterfall to Sustain High Soil Respiration Fluxes in a Mediterranean Cork Oak Forest
by Lobna Zribi, Florent Mouillot, Fatma Gharbi, Jean-Marc Ourcival and Belgacem Hanchi
Forests 2015, 6(9), 2918-2940; https://doi.org/10.3390/f6092918 - 26 Aug 2015
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 5589
Abstract
Soil respiration is a major component of the global carbon budget and Mediterranean ecosystems have usually been studied in locations with shallow soils, mild temperatures, and a prolonged dry season. This study investigates seasonal soil respiration rates and underlying mechanisms under wetter, warmer, [...] Read more.
Soil respiration is a major component of the global carbon budget and Mediterranean ecosystems have usually been studied in locations with shallow soils, mild temperatures, and a prolonged dry season. This study investigates seasonal soil respiration rates and underlying mechanisms under wetter, warmer, and more fertile conditions in a Mediterranean cork oak forest of Northern Tunisia (Africa), acknowledged as one of the most productive forests in the Mediterranean basin. We applied a soil respiration model based on soil temperature and relative water content and investigated how ecosystem functioning under these favorable conditions affected soil carbon storage through carbon inputs to the soil litter. Annual soil respiration rates varied between 1774 gC m−2 year−1 and 2227 gC m−2 year−1, which is on the highest range of observations under Mediterranean climate conditions. We attributed this high soil carbon flux as a response to favorable temperatures and soil water content, but this could be sustained only by a small carbon allocation to roots (root/shoot ratio = 0.31–0.41) leading to a large allocation to leaves with a multiannual leaf production, enhanced annual twig elongation (11.5–28.5 cm) with a reduced leaf life span (<1 year) maintaining a low LAI (1.68–1.88) and generating a high litterfall (386–636 gC m−2 year−1). Thus, the favorable climatic and edaphic conditions experienced by these Mediterranean cork oak forests drove high soil respiration fluxes which balanced the high carbon assimilation leading to a relatively small overall contribution (10.96–14.79 kgC m−2) to soil carbon storage. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Greenhouse Gas Fluxes from Below and Aboveground Forest Deadwood)
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21 pages, 10700 KiB  
Article
Drivers of CO2 Emission Rates from Dead Wood Logs of 13 Tree Species in the Initial Decomposition Phase
by Tiemo Kahl, Kristin Baber, Peter Otto, Christian Wirth and Jürgen Bauhus
Forests 2015, 6(7), 2484-2504; https://doi.org/10.3390/f6072484 - 20 Jul 2015
Cited by 44 | Viewed by 9773
Abstract
Large dead wood is an important structural component of forest ecosystems and a main component of forest carbon cycles. CO2 emissions from dead wood can be used as a proxy for actual decomposition rates. The main drivers of CO2 emission rates [...] Read more.
Large dead wood is an important structural component of forest ecosystems and a main component of forest carbon cycles. CO2 emissions from dead wood can be used as a proxy for actual decomposition rates. The main drivers of CO2 emission rates for dead wood of temperate European tree species are largely unknown. We applied a novel, closed chamber measurement technique to 360 dead wood logs of 13 important tree species in three regions in Germany. We found that tree species identity was with 71% independent contribution to the model (R2 = 0.62) the most important driver of volume-based CO2 emission rates, with angiosperms having on average higher rates than conifers. Wood temperature and fungal species richness had a positive effect on CO2 emission rates, whereas wood density had a negative effect. This is the first time that positive fungal species richness—wood decomposition relationship in temperate forests was shown. Certain fungal species were associated with high or low CO2 emission rates. In addition, as indicated by separate models for each tree species, forest management intensity, study region, and the water content as well as C and N concentration of dead wood influenced CO2 emission rates. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Greenhouse Gas Fluxes from Below and Aboveground Forest Deadwood)
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31 pages, 7297 KiB  
Article
Simulation of CO2 Fluxes in European Forest Ecosystems with the Coupled Soil-Vegetation Process Model “LandscapeDNDC”
by Saúl Molina-Herrera, Rüdiger Grote, Ignacio Santabárbara-Ruiz, David Kraus, Steffen Klatt, Edwin Haas, Ralf Kiese and Klaus Butterbach-Bahl
Forests 2015, 6(6), 1779-1809; https://doi.org/10.3390/f6061779 - 28 May 2015
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 7354
Abstract
CO2 exchange processes in forest ecosystems are of profound ecological and economic importance, meaning there is a need for generally applicable simulation tools. However, process-based ecosystem models, which are in principal suitable for the task, are commonly evaluated at only a few [...] Read more.
CO2 exchange processes in forest ecosystems are of profound ecological and economic importance, meaning there is a need for generally applicable simulation tools. However, process-based ecosystem models, which are in principal suitable for the task, are commonly evaluated at only a few sites and for a limited number of plant species. It is thus often unclear if the processes and parameters involved are suitable for model application at a regional scale. We tested the LandscapeDNDC forest growth module PnET (derived from the Photosynthetic / EvapoTranspiration model) with site-specific as well as multi-site calibrated parameters using independent data sets of eddy covariance measurements across a European transect. Although site-specific parametrization is superior (r2 for pooled Gross Primary Production (GPP) during calibration period: site-specific = 0.93, multi-site = 0.88; r2 for pooled Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) during calibration period: site-specific = 0.81, multi-site = 0.73), we show that general parameters are able to represent carbon uptake over periods of several years. The procedure has been applied for the three most dominant European tree species i.e., Scots pine, Norway spruce and European beech. In addition, we discuss potential model improvements with regard to the sensitivity of parameters to site conditions differentiated into climate, nutrient and drought influences. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Greenhouse Gas Fluxes from Below and Aboveground Forest Deadwood)
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