Species loss and aboveground carbon storage in a tropical forest

Tropical forest biodiversity is declining, but the resulting effects on key eco-system services, such as carbon storage and sequestration, remain unknown. We assessed the influence of the loss of tropical tree species on carbon storage by simulating 18 possible extinction scenarios within a well-studied 50-hectare tropical forest plot in Panama, which contains 227 tree species. Among extinction scenarios, aboveground carbon stocks varied by more than 600%, and biological insurance varied by more than 400%. These results indicate that future carbon storage in tropical forests will be influenced strongly by future species composition. In terrestrial ecosystems, functional diversity and relative abundance influence both the magnitude (1–5) and variability (6) of above-ground biomass. Aboveground biomass, in turn, substantially determines an ecosystem_s potential for carbon storage, which plays an important role in the regulation of atmospheri