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© 2018. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Forest carbon use efficiency (CUE, the ratio of net to gross primary productivity) represents the fraction of photosynthesis that is not used for plant respiration. Although important, it is often neglected in climate change impact analyses. Here we assess the potential impact of thinning on projected carbon cycle dynamics and implications for forest CUE and its components (i.e., gross and net primary productivity and plant respiration), as well as on forest biomass production. Using a detailed process-based forest ecosystem model forced by climate outputs of five Earth System Models under four representative climate scenarios, we investigate the sensitivity of the projected future changes in the autotrophic carbon budget of three representative European forests. We focus on changes in CUE and carbon stocks as a result of warming, rising atmospheric CO2 concentration, and forest thinning. Results show that autotrophic carbon sequestration decreases with forest development, and the decrease is faster with warming and in unthinned forests. This suggests that the combined impacts of climate change and changing CO2 concentrations lead the forests to grow faster, mature earlier, and also die younger. In addition, we show that under future climate conditions, forest thinning could mitigate the decrease in CUE, increase carbon allocation into more recalcitrant woody pools, and reduce physiological-climate-induced mortality risks. Altogether, our results show that thinning can improve the efficacy of forest-based mitigation strategies and should be carefully considered within a portfolio of mitigation options.

Details

Title
Thinning Can Reduce Losses in Carbon Use Efficiency and Carbon Stocks in Managed Forests Under Warmer Climate
Author
Collalti, Alessio 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Trotta, Carlo 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Keenan, Trevor F 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Ibrom, Andreas 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Bond-Lamberty, Ben 5   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Grote, Ruediger 6   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Vicca, Sara 7 ; Reyer, Christopher P O 8 ; Migliavacca, Mirco 9 ; Veroustraete, Frank 10 ; Anav, Alessandro 11 ; Campioli, Matteo 4 ; Scoccimarro, Enrico 12   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Šigut, Ladislav 13 ; Grieco, Elisa 14 ; Cescatti, Alessandro 15   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Matteucci, Giorgio 16   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Impacts on Agriculture, Forests and Ecosystem Services Division, Foundation Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), Viterbo, Italy; National Research Council of Italy, Institute for Agriculture and Forestry Systems in the Mediterranean (CNR-ISAFOM), Rende, Italy 
 Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-food and Forest Systems, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy 
 Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA; Department of Environmental Science Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA 
 Department Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Lyngby, Denmark 
 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Joint Global Change Research Institute at the University of Maryland-College Park, College Park, MD, USA 
 Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-IFU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany 
 Centre of Excellence PLECO (Pant and Vegetation Ecology), Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium 
 Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Potsdam, Germany 
 Max Plank Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany 
10  Department of Bioscience Engineering, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium 
11  College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK 
12  Climate Simulation and Prediction Division, Foundation Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), Bologna, Italy 
13  Department of Matter and Energy Fluxes, Global Change Research Institute CAS, Brno, Czech Republic 
14  Impacts on Agriculture, Forests and Ecosystem Services Division, Foundation Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), Viterbo, Italy 
15  Directorate for Sustainable Resources, European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy 
16  National Research Council of Italy, Institute for Agriculture and Forestry Systems in the Mediterranean (CNR-ISAFOM), Rende, Italy 
Pages
2427-2452
Section
Research Articles
Publication year
2018
Publication date
Oct 2018
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
e-ISSN
19422466
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2135013330
Copyright
© 2018. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.