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Computational Ecology and Software, 2022, 12(3): 123-140
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Article

Foliage biomass of the genera Picea spp. and Quercus spp. in winter temperature and annual precipitation gradients: Inter-genera paradox in the forests of Eurasia

V. A. Usoltsev2,3, H. Lin1,4,5,6, S.O. R. Shobairi1, I. S. Tsepordey3, Z. Ye1,4,5,6
1Research Center of Forestry Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China
2Ural State Forest Engineering University, Faculty of Forestry, Sibirskiy Trakt, 37, 620100 Yekaterinburg, Russia
3Botanical Garden of Ural Branch of RAS, Department of Forest Productivity, ul. 8 Marta, 202a, 620144 Yekaterinburg, Russia
4Key Laboratory of Forestry Remote Sensing Based Big Data and Ecological Security for Hunan Province, Changsha 410004, China
5Key Laboratory of State Forestry Administration on Forest Resources Management and Monitoring in Southern Area, Changsha 410004, China
6Changsha Changchang Forestry Technology Consulting Co., Ltd., Changsha 410004, China

Received 19 April 2022;Accepted 25 May 2022;Published online 30 May 2022;Published 1 September 2022
IAEES

Abstract
Current climate change make it increasingly important to assess the response of forest cover biomass to this change, which in turn determines the possibility of climate stabilization by reducing atmospheric CO2. Climate change projections can been linked to significant changes in water deficits and natural disturbance regimes in forest ecosystems across many parts of the world.Since the carbon-deposing potential of a plant community is determined by the biomass of assimilating organs, we focused in this article on comparative analysis of foliage biomass in the dark-coniferous genus Picea spp. and of leaved genus Quercus spp. in gradients of annual precipitation and winter temperature on the territory of Eurasia. The database for modelling involves 870 and 570 sample plots for spruce and oak correspondingly. When studying changes in the biomass of spruce and oak foliage in the hydrothermal gradients of Eurasia, we obtained statistically reliable, but surprising and paradoxical results. When the temperature increases by 1oC, the most increase in spruce foliage biomass occurs in cold regions with insufficient moisture supply, while oak leaf biomass, on the contrary, has the largest percentage of its decrease. In cold regions, as the transition from dry conditions to wet ones, the percentage of foliage mass in spruce decreases, and in oak increases. When the precipitation increases by 100 mm, there is the opposite patterns for spruce and oak: in warm regions, spruce has a decrease in the percentage of foliage mass, and oak, on the contrary, its increase. In the cold regions, these patterns change to the opposite: the spruce negative percentage changes to positive, and the oak positive percentage changes to negative. This phenomenon seems to be related to the positive ratio of photosynthesis and respiration in the spruce during the winter period when the oak does not have photosynthesis, but only respiration. It seems to be related to the fundamental difference between the winter physiology of evergreen and deciduous species, namely the ability of the former to assimilate atmospheric carbon dioxide and prolong the assimilation process beyond the vegetation period, which is usual for deciduous species. The development of such models for the main forest-forming species of Eurasia allow us to predict changes in the foliage productivity of the forest cover of Eurasia in relation to climate change.

Keywords hydrothermal gradients;foliage biomass;foliage efficiency;regression models;biomass equations;mean January temperature;annual precipitation.



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