by INRAE - National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment
Forests provide many ecosystem services, including microclimate regulation, biodiversity preservation, air and water purification, and soil protection. Together with the oceans, they are one of the two most important carbon sinks, due to their capacity to store carbon in the soil and in tree biomass.
As such, promoting fast-growing trees could strengthen efforts to mitigate climate change. This raises a key question for forest managers: which tree species have the greatest mitigation potential?
INRAE and Bordeaux Sciences Agro conducted a study to identify the tree characteristics (also known as functional traits) that favor growth and thus CO2 sequestration in biomass.
The paper is published in the journal Nature.
The researchers coordinated an international consortium involving the French National Forest Office (ONF) and the French National Center for Private Forest Ownership (CNPF) to study the growth of 223 tree species planted in 160 experimental forests across the world (Western Europe, United States, Brazil, Ethiopia, Cameroon, South-East Asia, among others). The species were representative of all the major forest biomes.
