Long-term decline of the Amazon carbon sink

Abstract

Atmospheric CO2 records indicate that the land surface has acted as a strong global carbon sink over recent decades1,2, with a substantial fraction of this sink likely located in the tropics3, particularly in the Amazon4. Nevertheless, it is unclear how the terrestrial carbon sink will evolve as climate and atmospheric composition continue to change. Here we analyse the historic evolution of the biomass dynamics of the Amazon rainforest over three decades using a distributed network of 321 plots. While this analysis confirms that Amazon forests have acted as a long-term net biomass sink, we find a long-term decreasing trend of carbon accumulation. Rates of net increase in above-ground biomass declined by a third during the last decade compared to the 1990s. This is a consequence of growth rate increases levelling off recently, while biomass mortality persistently increased throughout leading to a shortening of carbon residence times. Potential drivers for the mortality increase include a greater climate variability, and feedbacks of faster growth on mortality, resulting in shortened tree longevity5. The observed decline of the Amazon sink diverges markedly from the recent increase in terrestrial carbon uptake at the global scale1,2, and is contrary to expectations based on models6.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Brienen, RJW https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5397-5755 Phillips, OL https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8993-6168 Feldpausch, TR Gloor, E https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9384-6341 Baker, TR Lloyd, J Lopez-Gonzalez, G https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0814-8830 Monteagudo-Mendoza, A Malhi, Y Lewis, SL Vásquez Martinez, R Alexiades, M Álvarez Dávila, E Alvarez-Loayza, P Andrade, A Aragão, LEOC Araujo-Murakami, A Arets, EJMM Arroyo, L Aymard C, GA Bánki, OS Baraloto, C Barroso, J Bonal, D Boot, RGA Camargo, JLC Castilho, CV Chama, V Chao, KJ Chave, J Comiskey, JA Cornejo Valverde, F da Costa, L de Oliveira, EA Di Fiore, A Erwin, TL Fauset, S Forsthofer, M Galbraith, DR Grahame, ES Groot, N Hérault, B Higuchi, N Honorio C, E Keeling, H Killeen, TJ Laurance, WF Laurance, S Licona, J Magnussen, WE Marimon, BS Marimon-Junior, BH Mendoza, C Neill, DA Nogueira, EM Núñez, P Pallqui Camacho, NC Parada, A Pardo-Molina, G Peacock, J Peña-Claros, M Pickavance, GC Pitman, NCA Poorter, L Prieto, A Quesada, CA Ramírez, F Ramírez-Angulo, F Restrepo, Z Roopsind, A Rudas, A Salomão, RP Schwarz, M Silva, N Silva-Espejo, JE Silveira, M Stropp, J Talbot, J ter Steege, H Teran-Aguilar, J Terborgh, J Thomas-Caesar, R Toledo, M Torello-Raventos, M Umetsu, RK van der Heijden, GMF van der Hout, P Guimarães Vieira, IC Vieira, SA Vilanova, E Vos, VA Zagt, RJ
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© 2015, Author(s). This is an author produced version of a paper published in Nature. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy.
Keywords:	Forest ecology; Climate-change ecology; Population dynamics
Dates:	Published: 19 March 2015 Published (online): 18 March 2015 Accepted: 4 February 2015
Institution:	The University of Leeds
Academic Units:	The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > River Basin Processes & Management (Leeds) > SOG: water@leeds
Funding Information:	Funder Grant number EU - European Union 291585 (ERC 2011 ADG)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Publications
Date Deposited:	27 Apr 2015 10:17
Last Modified:	09 Apr 2019 14:51
Published Version:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14283
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Nature Publishing Group
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1038/nature14283
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:84240

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Long-term decline of the Amazon carbon sink

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