Species-rich forests store twice as much carbon as monocultures

Halle (Saale), Germany/Zurich, Switzerland/Beijing, China. Species-rich subtropical forests can take up, on average, twice as much carbon as monocultures. This has been reported by an international research team in the professional journal Science. The study was carried out as part of a unique field experiment conducted under the direction of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The experiment comprises forests grown specifically for this purpose in China; for the study, data from experimental plots with a total of over 150,000 trees were analysed. The researchers believe that the results speak in favour of using many different tree species during reforestation. Thus, both species conservation and climate protection can be promoted.

In the year 2009, BEF-China began as a unique forest experiment; combinations of trees comprising different numbers of species were planted - from monoculture to species-rich forest with 16 different tree species. After eight years, such a species-rich forest stored in its above-ground biomass an average of 32 tons of carbon per hectare. By contrast, an average monoculture stored only 12 tons per hectare; not even half the quantity of the species mixtures. During photosynthesis, the plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert the carbon to biomass. When a forest stores more carbon, this helps reduce greenhouse gases and, at the same time, also indicates high forest productivity.

That biodiversity increases productivity had previously been demonstrated through experiments in grassland ecosystems in Europe and the USA, for example in the Jena Experiment in Germany. By contrast, since it was assumed that all tree species occupy similar ecological niches, a minimal effect of biodiversity was conjectured for forests. Evidently, however, this assumption was wrong, as Prof Helge Bruelheide of Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, co-director of the iDiv research centre reports; "In the forestry experiment, biomass increased just as quickly as in the grassland ecosystems. As a result, even after just four years, there were clear differences between the monocultures and the species-rich forests."

"These findings have great ecological and economic significance", says Prof Bernhard Schmid of the University of Zurich, senior author in the more than 60-strong writing team of the current publication in Science. A previous study already found a positive correlation between biodiversity and carbon storage. "However, this previous study was based on simple comparison of natural forest plots varying in species richness and therefore it was impossible to conclude that higher biodiversity was the cause of the higher productivity", Schmid says. Prof Keping Ma of the Chinese Academy of Sciences adds: "But now we have reached the same conclusion with an experiment under controlled conditions: a forest with a large number of tree species is more productive than a monoculture".

Worldwide, there are plans for major reforestation programmes with the aim of protecting the climate through the planting of new forests. In China alone, between 2010 and 2015, 1.5 million hectares of new forest were planted each year, although mainly with fast-growing monocultures. "With a mix of native tree species, it is possible to achieve higher productivity, which then also helps to better protect the climate", Helge Bruelheide points out; "Species-rich forests are also less susceptible to disease and the extreme weather events which are becoming more common due to climate change. In addition, they also contribute towards protecting the world's threatened biodiversity." Reforestation with a mix of different species also pays off economically, the study authors say: if the effects observed in the experiment are extrapolated to the world's existing forests, it can be concluded that a 10% decline in tree species would lead to production losses of 20 billion US dollars, worldwide, per year.

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Tilo Arnhold, Tabea Turrini

BEF-China:

Through the BEF-China project, scientists are investigating the significance of biodiversity of trees and shrubs in forests in China. 'BEF' stands for 'Biodiversity-Ecosystem Functioning', that is, the correlation between biodiversity and the functioning of ecosystems. The BEF-China project is the first forest biodiversity experiment to be established in the exceptionally species-rich subtropics. In the BEF-China experiment, over 30 hectares of forest were newly planted in a mountain area 400 kilometres to the west of Shanghai in 2009 and 2010. The more than 500 plots were planted with different combinations of tree species so that they could be compared later. Each plot is 670 square meters in size, corresponding to the traditional Chinese unit area 'm?'. This makes BEF-China the largest experiment of its kind worldwide. Working with such a large area makes it possible to measure a wide variety of ecosystem functions, especially those from which we humans benefit; the so-called ecosystem services such as carbon storage, timber production and prevention of soil erosion.

More than 20 Chinese, German and Swiss universities and institutes are involved in the project. The research is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), The Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the EU.

http://www.bef-china.de

Since 2017, the International Research Training Group "Tree Diversity Interactions: The role of tree-tree interactions in local neighbourhoods in Chinese subtropical forests" (TreeDì) has been part of BEF-China. The German Research Foundation (DFG) has provided funding of around 3.5 million euros over four and a half years. It is run by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in cooperation with the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. On the German side, the doctoral candidates have their place of work at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) in Leipzig.

https://www.idiv.de/de/treedi.html

Original publication:

Yuanyuan Huang, Yuxin Chen, Nadia Castro-Izaguirre, Martin Baruffol, Matteo Brezzi, Anne Lang, Ying Li, Werner Härdtle, Goddert von Oheimb, Xuefei Yang, Xiaojuan Liu, Kequan Pei, Sabine Both, Bo Yang, David Eichenberg, Thorsten Assmann, Jürgen Bauhus, Thorsten Behrens, François Buscot, Xiao-Yong Chen, Douglas Chesters, Bing-Yang Ding, Walter Durka, Alexandra Erfmeier, Jingyun Fang, Markus Fischer, Liang-Dong Guo, Dali Guo, Jessica L.M. Gutknecht, Jin-Sheng He, Chun-Ling He, Andy Hector, Lydia Hönig, Ren-Yong Hu, Alexandra-Maria Klein, Peter Kühn, Yu Liang, Shan Li, Stefan Michalski, Michael Scherer-Lorenzen, Karsten Schmidt, Thomas Scholten, Andreas Schuldt, Xuezheng Shi, Man-Zhi Tan, Zhiyao Tang, Stefan Trogisch, Zhengwen Wang, Erik Welk, Christian Wirth, Tesfaye Wubet, Wenhua Xiang, Mingjian Yu, Xiao-Dong Yu, Jiayong Zhang, Shouren Zhang, Naili Zhang, Hong-Zhang Zhou, Chao-Dong Zhu, Li Zhu, Helge Bruelheide, Keping Ma, Pascal A. Niklaus, Bernhard Schmid (published on 05.10.2018): Impacts of species richness on productivity in a large-scale subtropical forest experiment. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.aat6405. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6410/80

Former press releases about similar topics:

Species-Rich Forests Better Compensate Environmental Impacts (22.08.2018):

https://www.media.uzh.ch/en/Press-Releases/2018/Species-Rich-Forests.html

How trees coexist (20.03.2018):

https://www.idiv.de/en/news/news_single_view/news_article/how_trees_co-1.html

How trees cooperate with each other: Nine new graduate students at iDiv (20.12.2017):

https://www.idiv.de/en/news/archive_2017/news_2017_single_view/news_article/how_trees_co.html

Value of Biodiversity for commercial Forest Production is up to five times higher than total Costs of Conservation (13.10.2016):

https://www.idiv.de/en/news/news_single_view/news_article/value-of-bio.html

Contact:

Prof Dr Helge Bruelheide
Professor for Geobotany, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Co-Director of iDiv
Phone: +49-345 5526222
Email: helge.bruelheide@botanik.uni-halle.de
Web:
https://www.botanik.uni-halle.de/geobotanik/helge_bruelheide/?lang=en

as well as
https://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/eshow/bruelheide_helge.html

and

Prof Dr Bernhard Schmid
Remote Sensing Laboratories
Department of Geography
University of Zurich
Phone: +41 79 681 99 36
Email: bernhard.schmid@uzh.ch
Web:
https://www.ieu.uzh.ch/en/staff/member/schmid_bernhard.html

and

Dr Tabea Turrini
Media and Communications
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv)
Phone: +49 341 9733106
Email: tabea.turrini@idiv.de
Web: http://www.idiv.de/en/groups_and_people/employees/details/eshow/turrini_tabea.html

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