Near isometric biomass partitioning in forest ecosystems of China

Based on the isometric hypothesis, belowground plant biomass (MB) should scale isometrically with aboveground biomass (MA) and the scaling exponent should not vary with environmental factors. We tested this hypothesis using a large forest biomass database collected in China. Allometric scaling funct...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2014-01, Vol.9 (1), p.e86550-e86550
Main Authors: Hui, Dafeng, Wang, Jun, Shen, Weijun, Le, Xuan, Ganter, Philip, Ren, Hai
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abiotic factors
Age
Agriculture
Analysis
Biology
Biomass
China
Databases, Factual
Ecology
Ecosystem
Ecosystem components
Elevation
Environmental factors
Environmental testing
Forest biomass
Forest ecosystems
Forests
Geography
Hypotheses
Influence
Isometric
Laboratories
Latitude
Longitude
Metabolism
Plant biomass
Productivity
Scaling
Studies
Terrestrial ecosystems
Trees
Vegetation
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Summary:Based on the isometric hypothesis, belowground plant biomass (MB) should scale isometrically with aboveground biomass (MA) and the scaling exponent should not vary with environmental factors. We tested this hypothesis using a large forest biomass database collected in China. Allometric scaling functions relating MB and MA were developed for the entire database and for different groups based on tree age, diameter at breast height, height, latitude, longitude or elevation. To investigate whether the scaling exponent is independent of these biotic and abiotic factors, we analyzed the relationship between the scaling exponent and these factors. Overall MB was significantly related to MA with a scaling exponent of 0.964. The scaling exponent of the allometric function did not vary with tree age, density, latitude, or longitude, but varied with diameter at breast height, height, and elevation. The mean of the scaling exponent over all groups was 0.986. Among 57 scaling relationships developed, 26 of the scaling exponents were not significantly different from 1. Our results generally support the isometric hypothesis. MB scaled near isometrically with MA and the scaling exponent did not vary with tree age, density, latitude, or longitude, but increased with tree size and elevation. While fitting a single allometric scaling relationship may be adequate, the estimation of MB from MA could be improved with size-specific scaling relationships.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0086550