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Carbon sequestration and soil fertility of tropical tree plantations and secondary forest established on degraded land

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Abstract

Purpose

Much tropical land requires rehabilitation but the capacity of reforestation with plantations or naturally regenerating secondary forests for overcoming soil degradation remains unclear. We hypothesised that desirable effects, including improved soil fertility and carbon sequestration, are achieved to a greater extent in Acacia mangium plantations and secondary forests than in Eucalyptus urophylla plantations.

Methods

We tested our hypothesis across soil and climate gradients in Vietnam with linear mixed-effect models and other, comparing A. mangium and E. urophylla plantations, secondary forests and pasture.

Results

A. mangium plantations and secondary forests showed a positive correlation between biomass production and desirable soils properties including increased soil carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, and reduced bulk density. All plantations, but not secondary forests, caused increases in soil acidity. Eight-year old A. mangium plantations contained most carbon in biomass+soil, and secondary forests and pastures had similar or higher soil carbon. E. urophylla plantations had the lowest soil carbon status, raising doubt about their sequestration capacity in current 6–8 year rotations.

Conclusions

The study demonstrates that appropriate reforestation enhances soil fertility and promotes carbon sequestration on degraded tropical lands and that unmanaged secondary forests are effective at improving soil fertility and sequestering carbon at low cost.

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Abbreviations

MAI:

Mean annual increment of plantation aboveground volume

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Acknowledgments

We thank collaborators at Vietnamese Academy of Forest Sciences and Vietnam Forestry University: Nguyen Van Thinh, Senior Lecturer Hoang Xuan Y and his students for help with sampling. We wish to thank Dr Laslo Pancel (GIZ) for his substantial support. Financial support for this study was provided by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and Australian Centre of International Agriculture Research (ACIAR), neither of which had any involvement in experimental design or other scientific matters of this project. Advice on statistical methods and R skill for analysing data were provided by Dr Simon Blomberg and Dr Ilyas Siddique from the University of Queensland. Part of the data used in this study is common with that of a research project on re-development of volume, site classes and yield tables of tree plantations funded by the Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development of Vietnam for the period 2010–2012.

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Correspondence to Phan Minh Sang.

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Responsible Editor: Zucong Cai.

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Sang, P.M., Lamb, D., Bonner, M. et al. Carbon sequestration and soil fertility of tropical tree plantations and secondary forest established on degraded land. Plant Soil 362, 187–200 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-012-1281-9

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