Why models underestimate West African tropical forest primary productivity
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Tropical forests dominate terrestrial photosynthesis, yet there are major contradictions in our understanding due to a lack of field studies, especially outside the tropical Americas. A recent field study indicated that West African forests have among the highest forests gross primary productivity (GPP) yet observed, contradicting models that rank them lower than Amazonian forests. Here, we show possible reasons for this data-model mismatch. We found that biometric GPP measurements are on average 56.3% higher than multiple global GPP products at the study sites. The underestimation of GPP largely disappears when a standard photosynthesis model is informed by local field-measured values of (a) fractional absorbed photosynthetic radiation (fAPAR), and (b) photosynthetic traits. Remote sensing products systematically underestimate fAPAR (33.9% on average at study sites) due to cloud contamination issues. The study highlights the potential widespread underestimation of tropical forests GPP and carbon cycling and hints at the ways forward for model and input data improvement.
Date Issued
2024-11-06
Date Acceptance
2024-10-28
Citation
Nature Communications, 2024, 15
ISSN
2041-1723
Publisher
Nature Portfolio
Journal / Book Title
Nature Communications
Volume
15
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2024
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-53949-0
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
9574
Date Publish Online
2024-11-06