Carbon budgets of temperate forest ecosystems

A summary of carbon-budget data from 30 forest stands is presented together with information on both above- and belowground ecosystem components. Only 10 of the stands had complete biomass data, 21 had complete productivity data and six had heterotrophic, or autotrophic respiration data, or both. The most comprehensive stand-level data have been collected for Pinus spp., Pseudotsuga menziesii, Abies amabilis and Liriodendron tulipifera. Only incomplete carbon budgets are available for most ecosystems studied, because measurements have been limited to one or several ecosystem processes (e.g., decay, productivity, storage). Based on the few complete C-budget studies that have been published, it is concluded that tree species differ in annual turnover of tissues.