Aim: To examine the contribution of large-diameter trees to biomass, stand structure, and species richness across forest biomes. Location: Global. Time period: Early 21st century. Major taxa studied: Woody plants. Methods: We examined the contribution of large trees to forest density, richness and biomass using a global network of 48 large (from 2 to 60 ha) forest plots representing 5,601,473 stems across 9,298 species and 210 plant families. This contribution was assessed using three metrics: the largest 1% of trees ≥ 1 cm diameter at breast height (DBH), all trees ≥ 60 cm DBH, and those rank-ordered largest trees that cumulatively comprise 50% of forest biomass. Results: Averaged across these 48 forest plots, the largest 1% of trees ≥ 1 cm DBH comprised 50% of aboveground live biomass, with hectare-scale standard deviation of 26%. Trees ≥ 60 cm DBH comprised 41% of aboveground live tree biomass. The size of the largest trees correlated with total forest biomass (r2 =.62, p
CITATION STYLE
Lutz, J. A., Furniss, T. J., Johnson, D. J., Davies, S. J., Allen, D., Alonso, A., … Zimmerman, J. K. (2018). Global importance of large-diameter trees. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 27(7), 849–864. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12747
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