Journal
PLANT ECOLOGY & DIVERSITY
Volume 7, Issue 1-2, Pages 7-24Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/17550874.2013.798366
Keywords
drought; carbon cycling; Caxiuana National Forest Reserve; climate change; tropical rainforest; biomass allocation; CUE; GPP; NPP; PCE
Categories
Funding
- UK Natural Environmental Research Council [GR3/11706, NER/A/S/2002/00487, NE/J011002/1, NE/B503384/1, NE/F002149/1]
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Australian Research Council [FT110100457]
- Royal Society of Edinburgh
- Jackson Foundation
- NERC [NE/F002149/1, NE/J011002/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/B503384/1, NE/J011002/1, NE/B504630/1] Funding Source: researchfish
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Background: There is much interest in how the Amazon rainforest may respond to future rainfall reduction. However, there are relatively few ecosystem-scale studies to inform this debate. Aims: We described the carbon cycle in a 1 ha rainforest plot subjected to 8-10 consecutive years of ca. 50% through-fall reduction (TFR) and compare these results with those from a nearby, unmodified control plot in eastern Amazonia. Methods: We quantified the components of net primary productivity (NPP), autotrophic (R-a) and heterotrophic respiration, and estimate gross primary productivity (GPP, the sum of NPP and R-a) and carbon-use efficiency (CUE, the ratio of NPP/GPP). Results: The TFR forest exhibited slightly lower NPP but slightly higher R-a, such that forest CUE was 0.29 +/- 0.04 on the control plot but 0.25 +/- 0.03 on the TFR plot. Compared with four years earlier, TFR plot leaf area index and small tree growth recovered and soil heterotrophic respiration had risen. Conclusions: This analysis tested and extended the key findings of a similar analysis 4 years earlier in the TFR treatment. The results indicated that, while the forest recovered from extended drought in some respects, it maintained higher overall R-a relative to the undroughted control, potentially causing the droughted forest to act as a net source of CO2.
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