To meet obligations under Article 3.3 of the Kyoto Protocol, New Zealand is required to estimate, in an unbiased manner, forest carbon stock change, over the Protocol’s first commitment period (2008-2012). New Zealand has three categories of forest, namely: natural forest; forests planted prior to 1990; and forests planted in non-forest land after 1990. Carbon credits can be earned from net car...

Montane forests of western China provide an opportunity to establish baseline studies for climate change. The region is being impacted by climate change, air pollution, and significant human impacts from tourism. We analyzed forest stand structure and climate-growth relationships from Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve in northwestern Sichuan province, along the eastern edge of the Tibetan plat...

The impacts of climate change on forest net biomass change are poorly understood but critical for predicting forest's contribution to the global carbon cycle. Recent studies show climate change-associated net biomass declines in mature forest plots. The representativeness of these plots for regional forests, however, remains uncertain because we lack an assessment of whether climate change impa...

Tropical forests continue to be deforested because forest owners believe they can earn more income through land uses involving forest conversion. A case study in a Mexican rainforest revealed that enrichment planting with the native tree species Pouteria sapota (‘mamey’) is a management approach that can increase the commercial value of the forest enough to compete with these destructive land u...

objective: ecosystems with mixed species compared to the ones with pure compositions provide a broader range of options in the fields of biodiversity, conservation, protection and restoration. nearly all forest plantations are established as monocultures, but research has shown that there are potential advantages to be gained by using carefully designed species mixtures in place of monocultures...

Secondary forests are more extensive than old-growth forests in many tropical regions, yet the genetic composition of colonizing populations is poorly understood. We analyzed the parentage of a founder population of 130 individuals of the canopy palm Iriartea deltoidea in a 24-year-old second-growth forest in lowland Costa Rica. Among 66 trees in adjacent old-growth forest, only two individuals...

the hyrcanian forests have been highly exploited in recent decades by human impacts. easy access, abundance and variety of valuable forest yields have led to population growth density, creation of new residential areas and deforestation activities. change detection is one of the main methods of management and evaluation of natural resources. we investigated forest changes in southern surroundin...

Predictions of forest succession, diversity and function require an understanding of how species differ in their growth, allocation patterns and susceptibility to mortality. These processes in turn are affected by allometric constraints and the physiological state of the tree, both of which are coupled to the tree's labile carbon status. Ultimately, insight into the hidden labile pools and the ...

Pit and mound microtopography is an important structural component of most forests, influencing soil processes and habitat diversity. These features have diminished greatly in northeastern U.S. forests since European settlement, as a result of the history of repeated logging, land-clearance followed by reforestation, and the smaller size of trees (and therefore windthrow features) comprising th...

The possible connections between the carbon balance of ecosystems and aerosol-cloud-climate interactions play a significant role in climate change studies. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, whereas the net effect of atmospheric aerosols is to cool the climate. Here, we investigated the connection between forest-atmosphere carbon exchange and aerosol dynamics in the continental boundary layer ...