ArticleNature communications2024
Contrasting carbon cycle along tropical forest aridity gradients in West Africa and Amazonia.
Article in Nature communications, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Diagnosing Linearity Along the Carbon Cascade in Terrestrial Biosphere Models and Observations.Global change biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Carbon dioxide removals by tropical moist forests offset most land-use emissions across 18 Afrotropical countries.Communications earth & environment · 2026Article
- A test of ecophysiological theories on tropical forest functional traits along a VPD gradient.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Why models underestimate West African tropical forest primary productivity.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Article
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Authors and funding
25 authors at 10 institutions in 8 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Tropical forests cover large areas of equatorial Africa and play a substantial role in the global carbon cycle. However, there has been a lack of biometric measurements to understand the forests' gross and net primary productivity (GPP, NPP) and their allocation. Here we present a detailed field assessment of the carbon budget of multiple forest sites in Africa, by monitoring 14 one-hectare plots along an aridity gradient in Ghana, West Africa. When compared with an equivalent aridity gradient in Amazonia, the studied West African forests generally had higher productivity and lower carbon use efficiency (CUE). The West African aridity gradient consistently shows the highest NPP, CUE, GPP, and autotrophic respiration at a medium-aridity site, Bobiri. Notably, NPP and GPP of the site are the highest yet reported anywhere for intact forests. Widely used data products substantially underestimate productivity when compared to biometric measurements in Amazonia and Africa. Our analysis suggests that the high productivity of the African forests is linked to their large GPP allocation to canopy and semi-deciduous characteristics.
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Registered trials
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