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Trade-offs between tree cover, carbon storage and floristic biodiversity in reforesting landscapes

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Abstract

This study explores the relationships between an increase in tree cover area (i.e., natural and planted-tree land covers) and changes in forest carbon storage and the potential of a landscape to provide habitat for native floristic biodiversity. Four areas experiencing an increase in tree cover were analyzed. We developed a metric estimating the potential to support native biodiversity based on tree cover type (plantation or natural forests) and the landscape pattern of natural and anthropogenic land covers. We used published estimates for forest and plantation carbon stocks for each region. Focus regions in northwestern Costa Rica, northern Vietnam, southern Chile and highland Ecuador all showed an increase in tree cover area of 390 %, 260 %, 123 % and 418 %, respectively. Landscapes experiencing increases in natural secondary forest also experienced an increase in carbon stored above and below ground, and in the potential to support native floristic biodiversity. Study landscapes in Chile and Ecuador experiencing an expansion of exotic plantations saw their carbon stock decrease along with their potential to support native floristic biodiversity. This study shows that an increase in forest area does not necessarily imply an increased provision of ecosystem services when landscapes are reforesting with monoculture plantations of exotic tree species. Changes in the support of native biodiversity and the carbon stored in pulp rotation plantations, along with other ecosystem services, should be fully considered before implementing reforestation projects.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the Belgian Science Policy, Research Program for Earth Observation Stereo II, contract SR/00/133, as part of the FOMO project (remote sensing of the forest transition and its ecosystem impacts in mountain environments). The authors would like to thank Patrick Meyfroidt, Marie Guns and Veerle Vanacker for their valuable information relating to Vietnam and Ecuador, and three anonymous reviewers who helped improve this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earth and Life Institute, Georges Lemaître Centre for Earth and Climate Research, University of Louvain, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Jaclyn M. Hall, Vincent Balthazar & Eric F. Lambin

  2. Institute for Coastal Science and Policy, Flanagan Building, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, 27858, USA

    Tracy Van Holt

  3. US Forest Service, Research and Development, Washington, DC, USA

    Amy E. Daniels

  4. School of Earth Sciences and Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Eric F. Lambin

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  1. Jaclyn M. Hall
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  2. Tracy Van Holt
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Correspondence to Jaclyn M. Hall.

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Hall, J.M., Van Holt, T., Daniels, A.E. et al. Trade-offs between tree cover, carbon storage and floristic biodiversity in reforesting landscapes. Landscape Ecol 27, 1135–1147 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-012-9755-y

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