Diverse Forests Can Absorb More Than Single Species Forests, Study Finds



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A recent study carried out in Eastern China has found that forests of various species of trees are capable of absorbing a large number of species of trees.

It is hoped that this could help to prevent climate change.

Cultivating A Forest For Research

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In 2009, a massive project was undertaken to plant 150,000 trees on a hillside in the province of Jiangxi, China. Researchers tracked the amount of carbon absorbed by the forest over the course of eight years. The researchers found that for every hectare of forest, there was an average of approximately 32 tons of carbon absorbed. In contrast, single species forests absorbed only an average of 12 tons of carbon for every hectare of forest. It is estimated that it is an additional increase in carbon storage – up to a tree stand of 20 different species.

The results of the experiment have been published in the journal Science and the study of the study of the impact of carbon absorption. The study involved 60 scientists from China, Germany, and Switzerland.

The researchers hypothesized that more forests would lead to higher carbon uptake, but this hypothesis had to be observed artificially. Previous studies had indeed identified a positive correlation between carbon storage and the biodiversity of plots of forest, yet the studies were much smaller in scale and simply compared the species diversity of natural plots to one another.

Ma Keping, botanist with the Chinese Academy of Scientists and one of the authors of the study, said that it was impossible to say that biodiversity was the reason behind the greater absorption of carbon by different forests. By cultivating the forest themselves, the researchers have been able to gain greater understanding of the effects of carbon monoxide in the forest.

Greater Diversity, More Biomass, Less Atmospheric Carbon

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North America and Europe, North America and Europe, North America and Europe. The predominant assumption was that it was more likely to be small in size than it would be for small areas of productivity. However, as co-director of the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research Helge Bruelheide explains, the biomass of forest ecosystems improved just as dramatically as it did when ecosystems in various conditions. Biomass is an indicator of absorbing carbon due to the process of photosynthesis plants convert absorbed carbon dioxide to biomass.

The researchers measured the productivity of the forest by ascertaining the amount of carbon stored biomass. The team cut down about 100 trees and calculated how much carbon had been stored by these trees using the volume of the biomass. According to the research team 's findings on half of the branches and trunks of the trees was stored carbon. They have been able to calculate the temperature of the atmosphere and have captured the atmosphere.

There are many reforestation projects underway in many different nations. For example, China has planted around 1.5 million hectares of forest in the five years between 2010 and 2015. While these reforestation attempts are laudable, they are unfortunately often massive monocultures of trees, optimized for fast growing times. Bernhard Schmid explains that reforestation programs around the world should pay attention to the results of the study, as it implies that all reforestation is not equal. Schmid explains:

Our new study shows that forests are not all the same when it comes to climate protection: monocultures do not succeed. The full level of carbon sequestration and thus mitigation of global warming can only be achieved with a mix of species.

Planting Diverse Forests Immediately

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Schmid goes on to say that species-rich forests also benefit the world by sheltering bio-diverse populations of wildlife. Forests that are rich in biodiversity are less likely to collapse than when they are more likely to be affected by disease events, which are becoming more common due to the effects of climate change. Schmid says that there is still a lot of diversity in the world of biodiversity and productivity, and that it is true to the world.

The research team says that the results of the study hold true in the rest of the world's forests, a 10% decline in the US $ 20 billion every year.

The results of the study have just come to a close in terms of climate change. A statement released by the Climate and Land Use Alliance states that the earth's temperature is higher than that of the Earth's temperature above 1.5 ° C. Rather, the alliance argues that it is possible to keep the energy of the earth.

While forests around the world are capable of absorbing one-quarter of human carbon emissions, severe wildfires and deforestation threaten to reduce that capacity. The nonprofit American forests states that funding for reforestation projects in the US has halted to the lapse of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. For this reason, the researchers hope that their findings will not be limited to investing in reforestation projects.

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