Low carbon storage of woody debris in a karst forest in southwestern China

The properties of woody debris(WD) vary across different forests under various soil conditions.Owing to the relatively shallow and low amounts of soils on karst terrains, it is necessary to determine the WD carbon inventory of karst forests. In this study, we recorded WD with a basal diameter for standing snags and the largeend diameter for fallen logs of ≥ 1 cm. The carbon density of WD in a secondary karst mixed evergreen and deciduous broad-leaved forest that had been clear-cut 55 years ago in southwestern China were inventoried in a 2 ha plot. Woody debris carbon density calculated using specific gravity and carbon concentration was 4.07 Mg C ha^-1. Woody debris with diameters ≥ 10 cm(coarse WD) constituted 53.8% of total carbon storage whereas WD < 10 cm in diameters(fine WD) accounted for more pieces of WD(89.9%).Lithocarpus confinis contributed the most WD carbon(26.5%). Intermediate decayed WD was relatively more abundant, but WD with final decay contributed the least to the total pieces of WD(6.7%). The contribution of WD to carbon storage of karst forest was low compared to other forests worldwide. Significant positive correlations were found between WD carbon and biodiversity(R^2= 0.035,p < 0.01) and elevation(R^2= 0.047, p < 0.01) and negative correlations was found in outcrop coverage(R^2= 0.034, p <0.01). Further studies are needed to elucidate the ecological functions of WD to better understand their roles in maintaining biodiversity, enhancing productivity, and controlling vegetation degradation in karst forest ecosystems.

Forest carbon storage in Guizhou Province based on field measurement dataset

Accurate estimation of forest carbon storage is crucial in understanding global and regional carbon cycles and projecting future ecological and economic scenarios.Guizhou is the largest karst landform province in China;61.9% of its land area is characterized as karst. However,monitoring its field biomass and carbon storage is difficult.This study synthesized and analyzed a comprehensive database of direct field observations of forest vegetation and soil carbon storage in Guizhou Province by using data from existing literature. The total vegetation carbon storage in Guizhou Province was 488.170 TgC, the average vegetation carbon density(VCD) was 27.866 MgC hm^(-2), the total amount of soil organic carbon(SOC)(20 cm) was 1017.364 TgC, and the average SOC density was 58.074 MgC hm^(-2). Among all vegetation types, needleleaf forest had the highest vegetation carbon stocks, and scrub presented the highest SOC storage. The vegetation and SOC storage values of the karst landform were 282.352 and 614.825 TgC, respectively, which were higher than thoseof the non-karst landform. VCD was concentrated at 10–40 MgC hm^(-2), and SOC density was concentrated at 40–60, 60–80, and 80–100 MgC hm^(-2). This comprehensive regional data synthesis and analysis based on direct field measurement of vegetation and soil will improve our understanding of the forest carbon cycle in karst landforms under a changing climate.