Warner et al. (2023): Young mixed planted forests store more carbon than monocultures—a meta-analysis

Emily Warner, Susan C. Cook-Patton, Owen T. Lewis, Nick Brown, Julia Koricheva, Nico Eisenhauer, Olga Ferlian, Dominique Gravel, Jefferson S. Hall, Hervé Jactel, Carolina Mayoral, Céline Meredieu, Christian Messier, Alain Paquette, William C. Parker, Catherine Potvin, Peter B. Reich, Andy Hector IN: Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 6, https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2023.1226514

To determine whether diversification of plantations would enhance aboveground carbon storage, the authors systematically reviewed over 11,360 publications, and acquired data from a global network of tree diversity experiments. They compiled a maximum dataset of 79 monoculture to mixed comparisons from 21 sites with all variables needed for a meta-analysis. The authors assessed aboveground carbon stocks in mixed-species planted forests vs. (a) the average of monocultures, (b) the best monoculture, and (c) commercial species monocultures, and examined potential mechanisms driving differences in carbon stocks between mixtures and monocultures.

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