first version with EFDB integration

Many of the data in ForC stand to be of value to national greenhouse gas inventories if made available through the Emission Factor Database (EFDB) of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We developed a process for semi-automated submission of data from ForC into the EFDB (code and documentation in IPCC-EFDB-integration repository). This process required some updates to the ForC database structure, leading to the release of a new version of ForC (v4.0, to be finalized upon publication of this manuscript).

Specirically, modest changes to the structure and contents of ForC were needed in order to provide all information required by EFDB and to improve ForC’s capacity to serve as a repository of valuable information for forest C accounting under IPCC guidelines. To support export of data to EFDB, and to improve the overall quality of the ForC database, we added or modified 18 fields (Appendix A), defined 15 new variables, implemented enhanced quality control, manually reviewed >1954 records to obtain additional required information, and added 329 new records.

first release of ForC with GROA

v3.0

update readmes

first release under CC-BY-4 license

v3.0-beta

Update DATA USE.md

first release of ForC with SRDB

Since publication of v2.0-Ecology, ForC has almost doubled in size (from 17,367 to 29,730 records), mainly through the integration of Ben Bond Lamberty's (@bpbond) Global Soil Respiration Database (SRDB). We have also added some records from the ForestGEO network. Additional targeted literature searches were conducted to identify any further available data on primary productivity, with particular focus on mature forests in temperate and boreal regions.

Note: There remain sites that were duplicated between SRDB and ForC and have not yet been integrated.

MEASUREMENTS.split

MEASUREMENTS.split Rdata file

Version for IPCC 2019 updated default tables for biomass growth of natural forests in the (sub)tropics

This data version will be used in default tables for biomass growth of natural forests in the (sub)tropics in the 2019 Refinement of the 2006 IPCC guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories.

This release demarcates the data version; associated scripts and figures remain under active development.

ForC data publication in Ecology

This release corresponds to our data publication in Ecology:

Anderson-Teixeira, K. J., M. M. H. Wang, J. C. McGarvey, V. Herrmann, A. J. Tepley, B. P. Bond-Lamberty, and D. S. LeBauer. in press. ForC: a global database of forest carbon stocks and fluxes. Ecology (in press).

ForC release following one round of peer review, prior to publication

Release following modifications in response to first round of peer review. Changes are recorded in issues #55- 62.

ForC release prior to publication

ForC expands upon the previously published portion of this database, TropForC v1.0 (Anderson-Teixeira et al. 2016a, 2016b; v1.0), with the primary changes being (1) an expansion of the geographic scope from pantropical to global and (2) an approximately five-fold expansion in the number of records (from 3,568 to 17,505). Treatment of plots and their history was substantially improved by (1) generation of a new table, PLOTS, that gives basic plot information and summarizes and summarizes their history (derived from the HISTORY table, which was previously named PLOTHISTORY) and (2) cleanup and checking of the HISTORY table.

This release is the version that will be submitted for peer review. Upon publication, v2.0-alpha will become v2.0.

First release with publication Anderson-Teixeira et al 2016

This version of TropForC-db corresponds to data released alongside the acceptance of the manuscript (Anderson-Teixeira et al 2016) and archived on Dryad (DOI:10.5061/dryad.t516f).

Abstract

Tropical forests play a critical role in the global carbon (C) cycle, storing ~45% of terrestrial C and constituting the largest component of the terrestrial C sink. Despite their central importance to the global C cycle, their ecosystem-level C cycles are not as well characterized as those of extra-tropical forests, and knowledge gaps hamper efforts to quantify C budgets across the tropics and to model tropical forest- climate interactions. To advance understanding of C dynamics of pantropical forests, we compiled a new database, the Tropical Forest C database (TropForC-db), which contains data on ground-based measurements of ecosystem-level C stocks and annual fluxes along with disturbance history. This database currently contains 3,568 records from 845 plots in 178 geographically distinct areas, making it the largest and most comprehensive database of its type. Using TropForC-db, we characterized C stocks and fluxes for young, intermediate-aged, and mature forests. Relative to existing C budgets of extra-tropical forests, mature tropical broadleaf evergreen forests had substantially higher gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (Reco), their autotropic respiration (Ra) consumed a larger proportion (~67%) of GPP, and their woody stem growth (ANPPstem) represented a smaller proportion of net primary productivity (NPP, ~32%) or GPP (~9%). In regrowth stands, aboveground biomass increased rapidly during the first 20 years following stand-clearing disturbance, with slower accumulation following agriculture and in deciduous forests, and continued to accumulate at a slower pace in forests aged 20-100 years. Most other C stocks likewise increased with stand age, while potential to describe age trends in C fluxes was generally data-limited. We expect that TropForC-db will prove useful for model evaluation and for quantifying the contribution of forests to the global C cycle. The database version associated with this publication is archived in Dryad (DOI:10.5061/dryad.t516f) and a dynamic version is maintained at https://github. com/forc-db.

Citations

When using this data, please cite the original publication:

Anderson-Teixeira KJ, Wang MMH, McGarvey JC, LeBauer DS (2016) Carbon dynamics of mature and regrowth tropical forests derived from a pantropical database (TropForC-db). Global Change Biology, online in advance of print. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13226

Additionally, please cite the Dryad data package:

Anderson-Teixeira KJ, Wang MMH, McGarvey JC, LeBauer DS (2016) Data from: Carbon dynamics of mature and regrowth tropical forests derived from a pantropical database (TropForC-db). Dryad Digital Repository. http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t516f