Abstract
To understand carbon cycle and flows of forests, accurate information on tree-component-specific litter production of trees is needed. In the ecosystem models, the litterfall of living trees is usually predicted by the biomass component by average amounts corresponding to site conditions or by multiplying the biomass of the growing stock by the component-specific biomass turnover rate. In this study, the rates of needle biomass turnover of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) were derived from the needle-shed dynamics. When the rates for needle litter production were modelled, the weighting and yellowing effects were taken into account. The annual biomass turnover rates of needles for southern and northern Finland are 0.21 and 0.10, respectively. Species-specific estimation of litter production is essential for understanding the carbon cycle and flows of forests. Biomass turnover rates can provide useful litter production estimates for large areas with average biomass values as a source of data.
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Acknowledgements
The author thanks the Academy of Finland for financing project number 52768 “Integrated method to estimate carbon budgets of forests“, which is part of the Research Programme on Sustainable Use of Natural Resources (SUNARE). I am also grateful to the National Forest Inventory for providing data for the national tree research (VAPU). Dr. Raisa Mäkipää, Aleksi Lehtonen and Mikko Peltoniemi are thanked their comments on the manuscript and Carol Ann Pelli for editing the English language.
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Muukkonen, P. Needle biomass turnover rates of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) derived from the needle-shed dynamics. Trees 19, 273–279 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-004-0381-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-004-0381-4