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Optimal rotation length for carbon sequestration in Eucalyptus plantations in subtropical China

New Forests volume 48, pages 609–627 (2017)Cite this article

Abstract

Most Eucalyptus plantations are intensively managed as short-rotation plantations and carbon (C) storage in plants and soils in stands older than 10 years is not well understood. We examined the changes in plant biomass C and soil organic C (SOC) storage across a chronosequence of E. urophylla × E. grandis forests (4-, 7-, 10-, 13-, and 21-year-old) in subtropical China. Biomass C stock significantly increased with stand age. SOC storage increased initially after afforestation, peaking in 10-year-old stands, and declined gradually. Ecosystem C pools in the five development stages were 111.76, 167.66, 234.04, 281.00, and 299.29 Mg ha−1, respectively. Trees and soils were the dominant C pools across all stand ages with the contribution of tree biomass C storage significantly increasing and SOC storage decreasing with age. Eucalyptus plantations are still in vigorous growth phase and have great potential for C sequestration at the end of the current rotation length (within 7 years). Considering the sharp decrease of annual biomass C increment rate and the gradual loss of SOC storage in stands older than 13 years, we recommend the optimal length for one full Eucalyptus plantation cycle should be 12–15 years in subtropical China to maximize land-use value and carbon sink value.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support from the Dongmen Forest Farm of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. We would also like to thank Alison Beamish at the University of British Columbia for her assistance with English language and grammatical editing of the manuscript. This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31460121), the Ministry of Science and Technology (2012BAD22B01), the Foundation of Chairman of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (11166-01), Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (1123014 and 11199001), Innovation Project of Guangxi Graduate Education (YCBZ2014008), the Chinese Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2014M552286).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Conservation, Forestry College, Guangxi University, 100 Daxuedong Road, Nanning, 530004, China

    Xiaoguo Zhou, Yuanguang Wen, Uromi Manage Goodale, Hua Zuo, Hongguang Zhu, Xiaoqiong Li, Yeming You, Li Yan & Xueman Huang

  2. State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-bioresources, Forestry College, Guangxi University, 100 Daxuedong Road, Nanning, 530004, China

    Yuanguang Wen, Uromi Manage Goodale, Xiaoqiong Li, Yeming You & Xueman Huang

  3. Dongmen State Forest Farm of Guangxi, Fusui, 532108, China

    Yong Su

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  1. Xiaoguo Zhou
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Correspondence to Yuanguang Wen.

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Zhou, X., Wen, Y., Goodale, U.M. et al. Optimal rotation length for carbon sequestration in Eucalyptus plantations in subtropical China. New Forests 48, 609–627 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-017-9588-2

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