ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. For. Glob. Change
Sec. Forest Growth
Large trees dominate carbon storage in the forests of the Peruvian Amazon
Provisionally accepted
Andi Lozano1
Geomar Vallejos Torres1*Nery Gaona-Jimenez1Alberto Alva Arévalo1Jaime W. Alvarado1Patricia García Gonzáles1Jorge Saavedra Ramírez2Juan C. Tuesta-Hidalgo2Oscar A. Tuesta-Hidalgo2Juan R. Baselly-VIllanueva3
RODOLFO JUAN CHUCHON REMON3Sofía Rengifo-Del Águila4
César Marín5,6- 1National University of San Martan, Tarapoto, Peru
- 2Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Alto Amazonas, Yurimaguas, Peru
- 3Instituto Nacional de Innovacion Agraria, La Molina, Peru
- 4Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, Brazil
- 5Universidad Santo Tomas, Santiago, Chile
- 6Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
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Forest carbon accumulation is crucial to mitigate ongoing climate change, as large individual trees store a substantial portion of the total carbon in biomass. In this study, large trees and carbon storage were estimated in five forests in the Peruvian Amazon. For the study, 100 plots were selected (twenty 500 m2 plots per forest site), distributed between 382 to 2086 meters above sea level. Various relationships were explored between the diameter at breast height (DBH) of the most abundant tree species and above-and below-ground carbon. The average carbon content in the tree was calculated based on 50% of the total tree volume at five sites of the Peruvian Amazon. The site with most tree species (Alto Mayo Forest), had 59 tree species. The species Brosimum alicastrum, Ficus insipida, Manilkara bidentata, Inga sp., and Pourouma cecropiifolia showed an average aboveground carbon of 2.31, 3.09, 2.52, 2.78, 2.93 t ha-1, respectively, and values of 0.35, 0.48, 0.38, 0.42 and 0.43 t ha-1 of belowground carbon in trees with ≥ 46 cm DBH. Nectandra sp. showed an above and belowground carbon of 2.50 and 0.38 t ha-1 in trees with ≥ 46 cm DBH, while Cedrelinga catenaeformis showed averages of 5.21 and 0.74 t ha-1 of above and belowground carbon in trees with ≥ 61 cm DBH. It was concluded that given the urgency of keeping carbon reserves out of the atmosphere, it is necessary to conserve trees larger than 41 cm, this also allows conserving forest biodiversity and microfauna by buffering the microclimate in the face of future climate changes.
Keywords: Forest, aerial carbon, Cutting cycle, DMC, allometric formulas, species richness
Received: 25 Sep 2025; Accepted: 30 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lozano, Vallejos Torres, Gaona-Jimenez, Alva Arévalo, Alvarado, García Gonzáles, Saavedra Ramírez, Tuesta-Hidalgo, Tuesta-Hidalgo, Baselly-VIllanueva, CHUCHON REMON, Rengifo-Del Águila and Marín. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Geomar Vallejos Torres
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