When 2 Mha of Amazonian forests are disturbed by selective logging each year, more than 90 Tg of carbon (C) is emitted to the atmosphere. Emissions are then counterbalanced by forest regrowth. With an original modelling approach, calibrated on a network of 133 permanent forest plots (175 ha total) across Amazonia, we link regional differences in climate, soil and initial biomass with survivors' and recruits' C fluxes to provide Amazon-wide predictions of post-logging C recovery. We show that net aboveground C recovery over 10 years is higher in the Guiana Shield and in the west (21{plus minus}3 MgC ha-1) than in the south (12{plus minus}3 MgC ha-1) where environmental stress is high (low rainfall, high seasonality). We highlight the key role of survivors in the forest regrowth and elaborate a comprehensive map of post-disturbance C recovery potential in Amazonia.
Plot info
We report the aboveground carbon stocks (ACS) before (initial ACS acs_i) and after (minimum ACS acsmin) the logging disturbance, for every plot used in this study, in TmFO Amazonian sites (www.tmfo.org).
Cumulative carbon changes in TmFO plots
We here report data from all TmFO Amazonian plots (www.tmfo.org) that have been included in this study. Sites and plots names are given as they are in each site's database. For each plot, t is the time (in years) since the minimum Aboveground Carbon Stock (ACS) was reached during the 5 years following the logging event. Cumulative ACS changes (in MgC/ha) are the total ACS gain (if positive) or loss (if negative) between 0 and t. They are subdivided into 5 changes: (i) cSg is the carbon that was gained from remnant trees (or survivors)' growth; (ii) cSl is the carbon loss from survivors' mortality; (iii) cRr is the sum of carbon gain from yearly recruits; (iv) cRg is the carbon gain from recruits' subsequent growth; (v) cRl is the carbon loss from recruits' mortality.
Primary metadata.xlsx
Sites description
This file describes the main characteristics of TmFO sites used in this study. Information included: (i) sites' coordinates (longitude, latitude), (ii) climatic variables extracted from Worldclim (www.worldclim.org): mean precipitation (mm/yr) and seasonality of precipitation (%); (iii) top soil bulk density (g/cm3) extracted from the Harmonized World Soil Database; (iv) sampling effort : number of plots and plot size (ha); (v) experiment duration : year of first and last census used in this study; (vi) range of species richness (number of species per ha for trees > 20 cm DBH); (vii) percentage of trees (> 20 cm DBH) identified to the species level (det_species) and to the genus level (det_genus).
sites_clim_soil.csv