Authors
Ted R Feldpausch, Jon Lloyd, Simon L Lewis, Roel JW Brienen, Manuel Gloor, Abel Monteagudo Mendoza, Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez, Lindsay Banin, Kamariah Abu Salim, Kofi Affum-Baffoe, Miguel Alexiades, Samuel Almeida, Ieda Amaral, Ana Andrade, LEOC Aragão, Alejandro Araujo Murakami, Eric JMM Arets, L Arroyo, Gerardo A Aymard C, Timothy R Baker, Olaf S Bánki, Nicholas J Berry, N Cardozo, Jérôme Chave, James A Comiskey, Esteban Alvarez, A De Oliveira, Anthony Di Fiore, G Djagbletey, TF Domingues, TL Erwin, PM Fearnside, MB França, MA Freitas, Niro Higuchi, Yoshiko Iida, E Jiménez, Abd Rahman Kassim, Timothy J Killeen, William F Laurance, Jon C Lovett, Y Malhi, Beatriz Schwantes Marimon, Ben Hur Marimon-Junior, Eddie Lenza, Andrew Robert Marshall, Casimiro Mendoza, Daniel J Metcalfe, Edward TA Mitchard, David A Neill, Bruce Walker Nelson, Reuben Nilus, Euler Melo Nogueira, A Parada, KS-H Peh, Antonio Pena Cruz, María Cristina Peñuela, Nigel CA Pitman, Adriana Prieto, Carlos Alberto Quesada, F Ramírez, Hirma Ramírez-Angulo, Jan M Reitsma, Agustín Rudas, Gustavo Saiz, Rafael Paiva Salomão, Michael Schwarz, Natalino Silva, Javier Eduardo Silva-Espejo, Marcos Silveira, Bonaventure Sonké, Juliana Stropp, Hermann E Taedoumg, S Tan, H Ter Steege, J Terborgh, Mireia Torello-Raventos, Geertje MF Van Der Heijden, R Vásquez, Emilio Vilanova, Vincent A Vos, L White, Simon Willcock, H Woell, Oliver L Phillips
Publication date
2012/8/27
Journal
Biogeosciences
Volume
9
Issue
8
Pages
3381-3403
Publisher
Copernicus Publications
Description
Aboveground tropical tree biomass and carbon storage estimates commonly ignore tree height (H). We estimate the effect of incorporating H on tropics-wide forest biomass estimates in 327 plots across four continents using 42 656 H and diameter measurements and harvested trees from 20 sites to answer the following questions:
1. What is the best H-model form and geographic unit to include in biomass models to minimise site-level uncertainty in estimates of destructive biomass?
2. To what extent does including H estimates derived in (1) reduce uncertainty in biomass estimates across all 327 plots?
3. What effect does accounting for H have on plot- and continental-scale forest biomass estimates?
The mean relative error in biomass estimates of destructively harvested trees when including H (mean 0.06), was half that when excluding H (mean 0.13). Power- and Weibull-H models provided the greatest reduction in uncertainty, with regional Weibull-H models preferred because they reduce uncertainty in smaller-diameter classes (≤40 cm D) that store about one-third of biomass per hectare in most forests. Propagating the relationships from destructively harvested tree biomass to each of the 327 plots from across the tropics shows that including H reduces errors from 41.8 Mg ha−1 (range 6.6 to 112.4) to 8.0 Mg ha−1 (−2.5 to 23.0). For all plots, aboveground live biomass was −52.2 Mg ha−1 (−82.0 to −20.3 bootstrapped 95% CI), or 13%, lower when including H estimates, with the greatest relative reductions in estimated biomass in forests of the Brazilian Shield, east Africa, and Australia, and relatively little change in the Guiana Shield, central …
1. What is the best H-model form and geographic unit to include in biomass models to minimise site-level uncertainty in estimates of destructive biomass?
2. To what extent does including H estimates derived in (1) reduce uncertainty in biomass estimates across all 327 plots?
3. What effect does accounting for H have on plot- and continental-scale forest biomass estimates?
The mean relative error in biomass estimates of destructively harvested trees when including H (mean 0.06), was half that when excluding H (mean 0.13). Power- and Weibull-H models provided the greatest reduction in uncertainty, with regional Weibull-H models preferred because they reduce uncertainty in smaller-diameter classes (≤40 cm D) that store about one-third of biomass per hectare in most forests. Propagating the relationships from destructively harvested tree biomass to each of the 327 plots from across the tropics shows that including H reduces errors from 41.8 Mg ha−1 (range 6.6 to 112.4) to 8.0 Mg ha−1 (−2.5 to 23.0). For all plots, aboveground live biomass was −52.2 Mg ha−1 (−82.0 to −20.3 bootstrapped 95% CI), or 13%, lower when including H estimates, with the greatest relative reductions in estimated biomass in forests of the Brazilian Shield, east Africa, and Australia, and relatively little change in the Guiana Shield, central …
Total citations
Scholar articles
TR Feldpausch, J Lloyd, SL Lewis, RJW Brienen… - Biogeosciences, 2012
S ALMEIDA, E ALVAREZ, JM Reitsma, S Willcock… - 2012
E Vilanova, V Vos, L White, S Wilcock, H Woell… - 2012