Long-Living Tropical Trees Play Outsized Role in Carbon Storage

April 9, 2020 • by Marc Airhart

A group of trees that grow fast, live long lives and reproduce slowly account for the bulk of the biomass.

Irene del Carmen Torres Dominguez measures the diameter of a tree on Barro Colorado Island in Panama.
Irene del Carmen Torres Dominguez measures the diameter of a tree on Barro Colorado Island in Panama. Since 1982, more than 200,000 trees are measured every five years on Barro Colorado Island in Panama. (Photo: Christian Ziegler)

A scatter plot divided into four quadrants: slow, fast, long-lived pioneer and short-lived pioneer

The composition of a tropical rainforest over time depends on how each tree species balances two different sets of trade-offs: growth versus survival (for example, one type of tree might grow fast but die young) and stature versus reproduction (another might grow tall but reproduce leisurely). The nearly 300 unique tree species that live on Barro Colorado Island in Panama (gray dots) can be represented in a computer model by just five functional groups (colored dots) and still produce accurate forecasts of tree composition and forest biomass over time.

Aerial view of a forest

Around 300 tree species grow in 50 hectares of old-growth forest at Barro Colorado Island, Panama. (Photo: Christian Ziegler)

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