Super-Charged Tropical Trees: Borneo's Productive Trees Vitally Important for Global Carbon Cycling

A team of scientists has found that the woody growth of forests in north Borneo is half as great again as in the most productive forests of north-west Amazonia, an average difference of 3.2 tons of wood per hectare per year.

The new study, published Thursday in the Journal of Ecology, examined differences in above-ground wood production (one component of the total uptake of carbon by plants) which is critically important in the global cycling of carbon.

Trees are taller for a given diameter in Southeast Asia compared with South America, meaning they gain more biomass per unit of diameter growth, and this in part explains the differences observed.

The research team also discovered that trees in north Borneo belonging to the family Dipterocarpaceae (or dipterocarps, translating literally to "winged seeds"), which grow to giant sizes, produced wood faster than neighbouring trees of other families, or any trees in the Amazonian sites.

Super-Charged Tropical Trees: Borneo's Productive Trees Vitally Important for Global Carbon Cycling