Rates and drivers of aboveground carbon accumulation in global monoculture plantation forests

Tree planting is a promising yet controversial natural climate solution. Here the authors perform a global analysis of aboveground C accumulation in tree monocultures, identifying key predictors such as prior land use, taxonomic identity, and plant traits. Restoring forest cover is a key action for mitigating climate change. Although monoculture plantations dominate existing commitments to restore forest cover, we lack a synthetic view of how carbon accumulates in these systems. Here, we assemble a global database of 4756 field-plot measurements from monoculture plantations across all forested continents. With these data, we model carbon accumulation in aboveground live tree biomass and examine the biological, environmental, and human drivers that influence this growth. Our results identify four-fold variation in carbon accumulation rates across tree genera, plant functional types, and biomes, as well as the key mediators (e.g., genus of tree, endemism of species, prior land use) of variation in these rates. Our nonlinear growth models advance our understanding of carbon accumulation in forests relative to mean annual rates, particularly during the next few decades that are critical for mitigating climate change.

Automated summary

In this study, the authors analyze the aboveground carbon accumulation in tree monocultures globally and identify key predictors such as prior land use, taxonomic identity, and plant traits. The results show a four-fold variation in carbon accumulation rates across tree genera, plant functional types, and biomes, as well as the key mediators of this variation.