CARBON CONCENTRATION IN THREE SPECIES OF TROPICAL TREES IN THE SIERRA SUR OF OAXACA, MÉXICO

Abstract

All terrestrial ecosystems, but especially tropical forests, are important to mitigate global climate change since they absorb and store CO2 in biomass form in the trees. The identification of the carbon concentration (CC) in tree species contributes to improve the estimations of carbon (C) when the aim is to make estimations in relatively large areas. The objective of this study was to determine and compare the CC in three tropical species of trees: Alchornea latifolia Sw, Cupania dentata DC. and Inga punctata Willd. from the Sierra Sur of Oaxaca, México. Therefore, the CC was measured in the stem, branches and leaves in trees of different diameters. For each species, three individuals were selected in three diametric categories CD I (less than 10 cm), CD II (between 10 and 20 cm) and CD III (between 21 and 35 cm) from which samples were obtained for the structural components. The CC expressed in percentage of biomass was determined in a Shimadzu TOC 5000-A total carbon automatic analyzer. The data were analyzed with ANOVA for a completely random design and the means were compared with the Tukey test (p?0.05). The CC in the structural components and diametrical categories in the three species were lower than the value that was accepted generically of 50 %. The lowest CC was found in the stem of the CD I of I. punctata, with 44.82 %, and the highest was in the leaves of CD III of C. dentata with 47.72 %. The general mean of CC was 46.20?1.03 %. The variations in CC should be taken into account to improve the accuracy in the estimations of the content of C in tropical trees and forests.