Dead wood carbon density for the main tree species in the Lithuanian hemiboreal forest
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Dead wood carbon density for the main tree species in the Lithuanian hemiboreal forest Vidas Stakėnas1 · Iveta Varnagirytė‑Kabašinskienė1 · Vaida Sirgedaitė‑Šėžienė1 · Kęstutis Armolaitis1 · Valda Araminienė1 · Milda Muraškienė1 · Povilas Žemaitis1 Received: 10 December 2019 / Revised: 17 July 2020 / Accepted: 21 July 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Aboveground dead wood has a range of important ecological functions, including carbon (C) storage. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories established on the basis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, Lithuania is encouraged to quantify C pools in forests, including C in living biomass, soil and dead wood. The aim of this study was to assess species-specific dead wood density (DWD) and carbon content (CC) per decay class for Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) H. Karst.), silver birch or downy birch (Betula pendula Roth or Betula pubescens Ehrh.), European aspen (Populus tremula L.), grey alder (Alnus incana (L.) Moench), black alder (Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertn.), common oak (Quercus robur L.) and European ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.), as the main representative hemiboreal forest tree species. The study findings revealed that mean DWD significantly decreased, while mean CC slightly increased during the wood decomposition process, which led to carbon density (CD) reduction over five decay classes. The mean CC showed little variation among the eight tree species and ranged between 47 and 54%. The lower CDs in the dead wood of decay classes 1 and 2 were more associated with coniferous than deciduous species. The estimated CD significantly decreased in all species with increasing decay class. Dead wood at decay class 5 of Scots pine, silver or downy birch, European ash and common oak had the highest CD, followed by Norway spruce and grey alder, and the lowest CDs were obtained for European aspen and black alder. Keywords Dead wood density · Carbon content · Forest tree species · Species-specific estimates · Wood decay class
Introduction Forest ecosystems have a significant effect on the global carbon cycle. Forests sequester carbon by accumulating carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and carbon is then accumulated in several forest pools as plant biomass, dead wood, litter and in forest soils. The carbon is continuously released through natural processes (respiration, oxidation) as well as human impact (deforestation, land use change and burning fossil fuels), causing an impact on global climate change (UNFCCC 1997). According to the Intergovernmental Panel Communicated by Claus Bässle. * Iveta Varnagirytė‑Kabašinskienė [email protected] 1
Institute of Forestry, Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Liepų Str. 1, Girionys, 53101 Kaunas District, Lithuania
on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, e
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