Toward consistent measurements of carbon accumulation: A multi-site assessment of biomass and basal area increment across Europe

a b s t r a c t The use of tree-ring data in carbon cycle research has so far been limited because traditional study designs are not geared toward quantifying forest carbon accumulation. Existing studies that assessed biomass increment from tree rings were often confined to individual sites and used inconsistent sampling schemes. We applied a consistent biomass-oriented sampling design at five managed forest sites located in differ- ent climate zones to assess the annual carbon accumulation in above-ground woody tissues (i.e. stems and branches) and its climate response. Radial growth and biometric measurements were combined to reconstruct the annual biomass increment in individual trees and upscaled to the site level. In addition to this, we estimated that 32-60 trees are required at these five sites to robustly quantify carbon accumu- lation rates. Tree dimensions and growth rates varied considerably among sites as a function of differing stand density, climatic limitations, and management interventions. Accordingly, mean site-level carbon accumulation rates between 65 g C m −2 y −1 and 225 g C m −2 y −1 were reconstructed for the 1970-2009 period. A comparison of biomass increment with the widely used basal area increment (BAI) revealed very similar growth trends but emphasized the merits of biomass assessments due to species-specific BAI/biomass relationship. Our study illustrates the benefits and challenges of combining tree-ring data with biometric measurements and promotes the consistent application of a standardized sampling pro- tocol across large spatial scales. It is thus viewed as a conceptual basis for future use of tree-ring data to approach research questions related to forest productivity and the terrestrial carbon balance.

[1]  Eberhard Parlow,et al.  Landsat TM/ETM+ and tree-ring based assessment of spatiotemporal patterns of the autumnal moth (Epirrita autumnata) in northernmost Fennoscandia , 2010 .

[2]  L. Brubaker,et al.  Long‐Term Trends in Forest Net Primary Productivity: Cascade Mountains, Washington , 1989 .

[3]  M. Dobbertin,et al.  Potential sampling bias in long-term forest growth trends reconstructed from tree rings: A case study from the Italian Alps , 1998 .

[4]  Patrizia Gasparini,et al.  Aboveground tree volume and phytomass prediction equations for forest species in Italy , 2011, European Journal of Forest Research.

[5]  T. Wigley,et al.  On the Average Value of Correlated Time Series, with Applications in Dendroclimatology and Hydrometeorology , 1984 .

[6]  P. Solin.  Cold storage of Norway Spruce cones and its effect on seed viability. , 1970 .

[7]  C. Tucker,et al.  Climate-Driven Increases in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 1982 to 1999 , 2003, Science.

[8]  Andrew G. Bunn,et al.  Responses of the circumpolar boreal forest to 20th century climate variability , 2007 .

[9]  R. B. Jackson,et al.  A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World’s Forests , 2011, Science.

[10]  N. Breda,et al.  Is ring width a reliable proxy for stem-biomass increment? A case study in European beech , 2005 .

[11]  Philippe Ciais,et al.  Site‐ and species‐specific responses of forest growth to climate across the European continent , 2013 .

[12]  Mary Beth Adams,et al.  Forest carbon sequestration changes in response to timber harvest , 2009 .

[13]  T. D. Mitchell,et al.  An improved method of constructing a database of monthly climate observations and associated high‐resolution grids , 2005 .

[14]  R. Schnur,et al.  Climate-carbon cycle feedback analysis: Results from the C , 2006 .

[15]  S. Li,et al.  The carbon budget of terrestrial ecosystems in East Asia over the last two decades , 2012 .

[16]  J. Neirynck,et al.  The importance of dissolved organic carbon fluxes for the carbon balance of a temperate Scots pine forest , 2011 .

[17]  W. Kurz,et al.  Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change , 2008, Nature.

[18]  Fritz H. Schweingruber,et al.  Tree-ring width and density data around the Northern Hemisphere: Part 1, local and regional climate signals , 2002 .

[19]  Arnaud Carrara,et al.  Net ecosystem CO2 exchange of mixed forest in Belgium over 5 years , 2003 .

[20]  Raisa Mäkipää,et al.  Biomass and stem volume equations for tree species in Europe , 2005, Silva Fennica Monographs.

[21]  Jonathan D. Bakker,et al.  A new, proportional method for reconstructing historical tree diameters , 2005 .

[22]  H. Spiecker,et al.  Stem exclusion and mortality in unmanaged subalpine forests of the Swiss Alps , 2012, European Journal of Forest Research.

[23]  Hans Beeckman,et al.  Oaks, tree-rings and wooden cultural heritage: a review of the main characteristics and applications of oak dendrochronology in Europe , 2009 .

[24]  H. Gärtner,et al.  Geomorphology and tree rings - field methods in dendrogeomorphology , 2004 .

[25]  J. Wallace,et al.  Coherent region-, species-, and frequency-dependent local climate signals in northern hemisphere tree-ring widths , 2011 .

[26]  Niels Otto Jensen,et al.  Increasing net CO2 uptake by a Danish beech forest during the period from 1996 to 2009 , 2011 .

[27]  H. Peltola,et al.  Changed thinning regimes may increase carbon stock under climate change: A case study from a Finnish boreal forest , 2007 .

[28]  Maosheng Zhao,et al.  Drought-Induced Reduction in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 2000 Through 2009 , 2010, Science.

[29]  N. Breda,et al.  Modelling variability of wood density in beech as affected by ring age, radial growth and climate , 2004, Trees.

[30]  Eero Nikinmaa,et al.  Long-term measurements of the carbon balance of a boreal Scots pine dominated forest ecosystem , 2009 .

[31]  Markus Reichstein,et al.  Assimilation exceeds respiration sensitivity to drought: A FLUXNET synthesis , 2010 .

[32]  Marco Bindi,et al.  Modelling carbon budget of Mediterranean forests using ground and remote sensing measurements , 2005 .

[33]  F. Biondi,et al.  A Theory-Driven Approach to Tree-Ring Standardization: Defining the Biological Trend from Expected Basal Area Increment , 2008 .

[34]  J. Pierrat,et al.  Effect of sampling effort on the regional chronology statistics and climate-growth relationships estimation , 2013 .

[35]  C. Wirth,et al.  Generic biomass functions for Common beech (Fagus sylvatica) in Central Europe: predictions and components of uncertainty , 2008 .

[36]  Andrew M. Liebhold,et al.  1200 years of regular outbreaks in alpine insects , 2007, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[37]  Peter W. Brewer,et al.  A new approach to dendrochronological data management , 2010 .

[38]  E. Nikinmaa,et al.  Above-ground woody carbon sequestration measured from tree rings is coherent with net ecosystem productivity at five eddy-covariance sites. , 2014, The New phytologist.

[39]  Markus Reichstein,et al.  Uncertainties of modeling gross primary productivity over Europe: A systematic study on the effects of using different drivers and terrestrial biosphere models , 2007 .

[40]  C. Bigler,et al.  Fifty years of natural succession in Swiss forest reserves: changes in stand structure and mortality rates of oak and beech , 2012 .

[41]  Harald Bugmann,et al.  Growth enhancement of Picea abies trees under long-term, low-dose N addition is due to morphological more than to physiological changes. , 2012, Tree physiology.

[42]  Christian Wirth,et al.  Evaluating tree carbon predictions for beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) in western Germany , 2004 .

[43]  Niklaus E. Zimmermann,et al.  The effects of land use and climate change on the carbon cycle of Europe over the past 500 years , 2012 .

[44]  Tareq Hussein,et al.  Fluxes of carbon dioxide and water vapour over Scots pine forest and clearing , 2002 .

[45]  F. H. Brække.  Distribution and yield of biomass from young Pinus sylvestris and Picea abies stands on drained and fertilized peatland , 1986 .

[46]  N. Graham,et al.  Persistent Positive North Atlantic Oscillation Mode Dominated the Medieval Climate Anomaly , 2009, Science.

[47]  Christian Bernhofer,et al.  A decade of carbon, water and energy flux measurements of an old spruce forest at the Anchor Station Tharandt , 2007 .

[48]  Petteri Vanninen,et al.  Impacts of size and competition on tree form and distribution of aboveground biomass in Scots pine , 1998 .

[49]  Wilfried Thuiller,et al.  Effects of competition on tree radial‐growth vary in importance but not in intensity along climatic gradients , 2011 .

[50]  A. Barbati,et al.  Climate change impacts, adaptive capacity, and vulnerability of European forest ecosystems , 2010 .

[51]  P. Ciais,et al.  Net carbon dioxide losses of northern ecosystems in response to autumn warming , 2008, Nature.

[52]  F. Schweingruber,et al.  Site ecological differences to the climatic forcing of spruce pointer years from the Lötschental, Switzerland , 2004 .

[53]  Aaron A. Berg,et al.  Tree ring evidence for limited direct CO2 fertilization of forests over the 20th century , 2010 .

[54]  E. Vaganov,et al.  Climatically induced interannual variability in aboveground production in forest-tundra and northern taiga of central Siberia , 2006, Oecologia.

[55]  E. Mosley‐Thompson,et al.  High-resolution palaeoclimatology of the last millennium: a review of current status and future prospects , 2009 .

[56]  K. Larsen,et al.  Synthesis on the carbon budget and cycling in a Danish, temperate deciduous forest , 2013 .

[57]  Valerie Trouet,et al.  Ensemble reconstruction constraints on the global carbon cycle sensitivity to climate , 2010, Nature.

[58]  F. Woodward,et al.  Terrestrial Gross Carbon Dioxide Uptake: Global Distribution and Covariation with Climate , 2010, Science.