As the biggest carbon pool in terrestrial ecosystems, forest ecosystems play an important role in carbon sequestration to mitigate global climate change and significantly contribute to the global carbon balance. Numerous studies on the spatial the temporal patterns of carbon storage in forest ecosystems have been conducted on national and global scales, which have provided evidence of the importance of forest ecosystems in global carbon cycle.

However, there are some uncertainties in forest carbon storage estimates. Tree species and ages are the important causes that resulted in the estimation error of carbon storage in forest ecosystems. In addition, the neglect of carbon storage in understory and improper selection of carbon coefficients increased the uncertainties in forest ecosystem carbon storage estimates. So, it is necessary to thoroughly estimate forest carbon storage in a small scale, to reevaluate the carbon sequestration capability of forest ecosystems as carbon sinks.

Associate professor CHEN Longchi, professor WANG Qingkui, and professor WANG Silong from Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), estimated the spatial and temporal patterns of carbon storage in forest ecosystems in Hunan Province by combining forest inventory data with field survey.

The results showed that the carbon storage in forest ecosystems in Hunan Province increased from 820Tg to 1277Tg over the two decades, with 458Tg of carbon sequestration. The mean annual carbon sequestration was 25.8Tg yr^-1. The uneven spatial distributions of forest carbon storage and sequestration in Hunan exhibited similar pattern with the highest in the western Hunan and the lowest in the central Hunan. The forest ecosystems in Hunan present a significant carbon sequestration potential with 1321Tg.

These findings provide important scientific basis for the management of forest ecosystems to maximize the carbon sequestration in Hunan Province.

This study entitled " Spatiotemporal patterns of carbon storage in forest ecosystems in Hunan Province, China" was published in Forest Ecology and Management.

This research is financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.