Forests without top predators (such as tigers) risk being overgrazed by large herbivore prey, depleting vegetation carbon stocks and their capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, an essential ecosystem function for mitigating climate change. Therefore, just as forest protection and restoration can support top predator recovery "bottom-up," large carnivore conservation likely promotes vegetation recovery "top-down" and represents an understudied component in nature-based solutions to climate change. Research published in Global Change Biology provides new insights into these relationships.
Investigators found that tiger presence is associated with higher forest vegetation carbon stocks per unit area, as well as overall lower carbon dioxide emissions and higher carbon dioxide removal than tiger-absent forests. Also, forest vegetation or soil carbon stocks increased with tiger density in four forest habitat types studied.
The findings reveal that tigers are both an indicator and a driver of forest ecosystem carbon stocks, depending on underlying ecological conditions, and could help safeguard against carbon emissions.
"Our analysis indicates that tiger density can influence forest vegetation carbon stocks by controlling large herbivore prey, but there is important context-dependency and variable outcomes to consider," said corresponding author Guangshun Jiang, PhD, of Northeast Forestry University, in China. "Rebuilding forest carbon stocks can support tiger population growth, while tiger presence also seems to have a guardian effect to protect forests from deforestation and associated carbon emissions."
URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.70191
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