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Liana Impacts On Carbon Cycling, Storage And Sequestration In Tropical Forests, Geertje M. Van Der Heijden, Stefan A. Schnitzer, Jennifer S. Powers, Oliver L. Phillips

Biological Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Mature tropical forests sequester large quantities of atmospheric CO2, which they store as plant biomass. These forests are changing however, including an increase in liana abundance and biomass over recent decades in Neotropical forests. We ask here how this increase in lianas might impact the tropical forest carbon cycle and their capacity for carbon storage and sequestration. Lianas reduce tree growth, survival, and leaf productivity; however, lianas also invest significantly in leaf production, and the increase in lianas could conceivably offset liana‐induced reductions in tree canopy productivity with no adverse effects to the forest‐level canopy productivity. By contrast, lianas decrease …