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Biomass turnover time in terrestrial ecosystems halved by land use

Nature Geoscience volume 9, pages 674–678 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

The terrestrial carbon cycle is not well quantified1. Biomass turnover time is a crucial parameter in the global carbon cycle2,3,4, and contributes to the feedback between the terrestrial carbon cycle and climate2,3,4,5,6,7. Biomass turnover time varies substantially in time and space, but its determinants are not well known8,9, making predictions of future global carbon cycle dynamics uncertain5,10,11,12,13. Land use—the sum of activities that aim at enhancing terrestrial ecosystem services14—alters plant growth15 and reduces biomass stocks16, and is hence expected to affect biomass turnover. Here we explore land-use-induced alterations of biomass turnover at the global scale by comparing the biomass turnover of the actual vegetation with that of a hypothetical vegetation state with no land use under current climate conditions. We find that, in the global average, biomass turnover is 1.9 times faster with land use. This acceleration affects all biomes roughly equally, but with large differences between land-use types. Land conversion, for example from forests to agricultural fields, is responsible for 59% of the acceleration; the use of forests and natural grazing land accounts for 26% and 15% respectively. Reductions in biomass stocks are partly compensated by reductions in net primary productivity. We conclude that land use significantly and systematically affects the fundamental trade-off between carbon turnover and carbon stocks.

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Figure 1: Global human acceleration of biomass turnover, spatial pattern, histogram and latitudinal profiles.
Figure 2: Land-use-induced acceleration of biomass turnover.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC-2010-stg-263522 ‘LUISE’), the European Commission (H2020-EO-2014-640176 ‘BACI’), and the ProVision Programme of the Austrian Ministry of Science. We thank M. Thurner for providing the temperate–boreal woody carbon stock data set (ref. 30). This research contributes to the Global Land Project (www.globallandproject.org).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Social Ecology Vienna, Alpen-Adria Universitaet Klagenfurt - Vienna - Graz, Schottenfeldgasse 29, 1070 Vienna, Austria

    Karl-Heinz Erb, Tamara Fetzel, Christoph Plutzar, Thomas Kastner, Christian Lauk, Andreas Mayer, Maria Niedertscheider & Helmut Haberl

  2. Division of Conservation Biology, Vegetation Ecology and Landscape Ecology, University of Vienna, Rennweg 14, 1030 Vienna, Austria

    Christoph Plutzar

  3. Institute of Botany, University of Basel, Schönbeinstrasse 6, 4056 Basel, Switzerland

    Christian Körner

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  1. Karl-Heinz Erb
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Contributions

K.-H.E., T.F., C.P. and H.H. designed the study. K.-H.E., T.F., T.K. and C.P. performed the empirical research. All authors contributed significantly to the final analysis, interpretation or results and writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Karl-Heinz Erb.

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Erb, KH., Fetzel, T., Plutzar, C. et al. Biomass turnover time in terrestrial ecosystems halved by land use. Nature Geosci 9, 674–678 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2782

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