Abstract
Sustainable forest management ought to include the production of non-use value, mainly in forests with low value of direct production. Predictions on climate change points out increase in aridity and changes in fire regime (increasing fire risk, recurrence and severity), particularly in the Mediterranean Basin. However, we have to question whether this implies a decrease in forest resilience and productivity. In summer 1994, large forest fires burned a huge surface of Aleppo pine stands in Spain. In areas naturally regenerated, we carried out early thinning and sampled 18 plots. In winter 2008 and 2009, we inventoried all pine trees in sampling plots, recording total height, diameter and canopy cover for scaling-up results to stand-level estimation. In addition, we destructively sampled 54 individual pine trees, selecting various thinning and dating treatments, to measure and estimate biomass and partitioning. The date of thinning influenced allometric relationships, earlier thinning stimulated the productivity of individual pine saplings, increasing the three components of carbon intake. Although, the total net carbon value was lower in almost all thinned plots (at least for short periods after thinning), differences were actually found depending on the cutting age and thinning severity. Control and thinned plots (mainly those thinned earlier and heavier) showed similar amounts of carbon but comprised in a low number of living trees with high productivity. Thus, productivity and carbon storage assessment should be monitored, in the long-term, to check prediction of proposed models for evaluation on early treatments.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Timothy Watts (TLS-Bureau United Kingdom) for the language review. We thank the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación for providing funding and support to the Forest Ecology Researching Group in the projects CYCIT-AGL 2008-03602/FOR and CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010: MONTES (CSD 2008-00040). We would also like to thank the Consejería de Educación y Ciencia de la Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha for their support in the Regional projects PCC 08-0109 (ECOFLUX II) and POII 09-0096-3367.
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De las Heras, J., Moya, D., López-Serrano, F.R. et al. Carbon sequestration of naturally regenerated Aleppo pine stands in response to early thinning. New Forests 44, 457–470 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-012-9356-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-012-9356-2