Structural changes caused by selective logging undermine the thermal buffering capacity of tropical forests

Santos, Erone Ghizoni; Svátek, Martin; Nunes, Matheus Henrique; Aalto, Juha; Senior, Rebecca A.; Matula, Radim; Plichta, Roman; Maeda, Eduardo Eiji

Abstract

Selective logging is responsible for approximately 50 % of human-induced disturbances in tropical forests. The magnitude of disturbances from logging on the structure of forests varies widely and is associated with a multitude of impacts on the forest microclimate. However, it is still unclear how changes in the spatial arrangement of vegetation arising from selective logging affect the capacity of forests to buffer large-scale climate (i.e., macroclimate) variability. In this study, we leveraged hundreds of terrestrial LiDAR measurements across tropical forests in Malaysian Borneoto quantify the impacts of logging on canopy structural traits, using a space-for-time approach. This information was combined with locally measured microclimate temperatures of the forest understory to evaluate how logging disturbances alter the capacity of tropical forests to buffer macroclimate variability. We found that heavily logged forests were approximately 12 m shorter and had 65 % lower plant area density than unlogged forests, with most plant material allocated in the first 10 m above ground. Heavily logged forests were on average 1.5 °C warmer than unlogged forests. More strikingly, we show that subtle changes in the forest structure were sufficient to reduce the cooling capacity of forests during extremely warm days (e.g., anomalies > 2σ), while understory temperatures in heavily logged forests were often warmer than the macroclimate under the same conditions. Our results thus demonstrate that selective logging is associated with substantial changes in the fine-scale thermal regime of the understory. Hence, mitigating and managing logging disturbances will be critical for maintaining niches and thermal limits within tropical forests in the future.

Citation

Santos, E. G., Svátek, M., Nunes, M. H., Aalto, J., Senior, R. A., Matula, R., …Maeda, E. E. (2024). Structural changes caused by selective logging undermine the thermal buffering capacity of tropical forests. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 348, Article 109912. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.109912

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 26, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Feb 12, 2024
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2024
• Deposit Date: Mar 13, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 13, 2024
• Journal: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
• Print ISSN: 0168-1923
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 348
• Article Number: 109912
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.109912
• Keywords: Atmospheric Science; Agronomy and Crop Science; Global and Planetary Change; Forestry
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2326925