Abstract: |
This is the appendix of the Ecol Apps tropical forest NPP paper "NPP in tropical forests: an evaluation and synthesis of existing field data", and it is available online in the data journal Ecological Archives: Clark, D.A., S. Brown, D. Kicklighter, J. Chambers, J.R. Thomlinson, Jian Ni, and E.A. Holland. 2001. Appendix 1. Estimates from the literature of net primary productivity in tropical forests. Ecological Archives A011-006. Because of the difficulties of measuring NPP* components in tropical forests (see text), several approaches have been used to estimate NPP in these ecosystems. Although these approaches have attempted to make the best use of limited data on NPP* components, they often relied on relationships extrapolated from temperate forests, information from secondary forests, or dubious assumptions about the constancy of environmental conditions in tropical forests to develop estimates of annual NPP. Below we list estimates of total NPP, aboveground NPP (ANPP) and belowground NPP (BNPP) reported in the literature. Our objective is to highlight the problems associated with developing a consistent database of NPP in tropical forests. Most sites listed below do not meet the criteria established in this study due to problematic or undocumented methods. However, many of these NPP estimates have been used in past compilations of tropical forest NPP (e.g., Lieth 1975, Murphy 1975, DeAngelis et al. 1981, Vogt et al. 1996, Esser et al. 1997). Unfortunately, conflicting NPP estimates for a particular site among reviews of tropicalforest NPP has also added to confusion about NPP in these biomes. To clarify such cases, where possible we provide brief descriptions of how NPP was estimated in these studies. If necessary, we converted the units of the following NPP estimates from dry weight of biomass to carbon by multiplying dry biomass by 0.5 (Note: Raich et al. [1991] and McGuire et al. [1992] reported NPP in units of g C m-2 yr-1; however, both of these authors used a factor of 0.475 g C (g OM)-1 to convert dry weight of organic matter into grams of carbon).
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