Goodman, RC, Phillips, OL orcid.org/0000-0002-8993-6168 and Baker, TR (2014) The importance of crown dimensions to improve tropical tree biomass estimates. Ecological Applications, 24 (4). pp. 680-698. ISSN 1051-0761
Abstract
Tropical forests play a vital role in the global carbon cycle, but the amount of carbon they contain and its spatial distribution remain uncertain. Recent studies suggest that once tree height is accounted for in biomass calculations, in addition to diameter and wood density, carbon stock estimates are reduced in many areas. However, it is possible that larger crown sizes might offset the reduction in biomass estimates in some forests where tree heights are lower because even comparatively short trees develop large, well-lit crowns in or above the forest canopy. While current allometric models and theory focus on diameter, wood density, and height, the influence of crown size and structure has not been well studied.To test the extent to which accounting for crown parameters can improve biomass estimates, we harvested and weighed 51 trees (11–169 cm diameter) in southwestern Amazonia where no direct biomass measurements have been made. The trees in our study had nearly half of total above ground biomass in the branches (44% ± 2% [mean ± SE]), demonstrating the importance of accounting for tree crowns. Consistent with our predictions, key pantropical equations that include height, but do not account for crown dimensions, underestimated the sum total biomass of all 51 trees by 11% to 14%, primarily due to substantial underestimates of many of the largest trees. In our models, including crown radius greatly improves performance and reduces error, especially for the largest trees. In addition, over the full data set, crown radius explained more variation in above ground biomass (10.5%) than height (6.0%). Crown form is also important: trees with a monopodial architectural type are estimated to have 21–44% less mass than trees with other growth patterns. Our analysis suggests that accounting for crown allometry would substantially improve the accuracy of tropical estimates of tree biomass and its distribution in primary and degraded forests.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2014 by the Ecological Society of America. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | allometric theory; carbon stocks; LiDAR; Madre de Dios; model evaluation; monopodial; Peru; REDD; remote sensing; tree architecture |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EU - European Union 291585 (ERC 2011 ADG) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 06 Apr 2016 14:12 |
Last Modified: | 27 Mar 2017 11:01 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/13-0070.1 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Ecological Society of America |
Identification Number: | 10.1890/13-0070.1 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:92618 |