Edge effects enhance carbon uptake and its vulnerability to climate change in temperate broadleaf forests.

ABSTRACT: Forest fragmentation is a ubiquitous, ongoing global phenomenon with profound impacts on the growing conditions of the world's remaining forest. The temperate broadleaf forest makes a large contribution to the global terrestrial carbon sink but is also the most heavily fragmented forest biome in the world. We use field measurements and geospatial analyses to characterize carbon dynamics in temperate broadleaf forest fragments. We show that forest growth and biomass increase by 89 ± 17% and 64 ± 12%, respectively, from the forest interior to edge, but ecosystem edge enhancements are not currently captured by models or approaches to quantifying regional C balance. To the extent that the findings from our research represent the forest of southern New England in the United States, we provide a

SUBMITTER: Reinmann AB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5224393 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature