Tropical Trees are Super-Charged in Borneo Compared to Amazon Rainforest

It turns out that the forests of Borneo are more productive than you might expect. Scientists have found that the woody growth of these forests is half as great again as the most productive forests of north-west Amazonia; that's a difference of 3.2 tons of wood per hectare per year.

Regional variation in wood production rates has been suspected before, but it's not until now that it's been confirmed. The scientists used two identical methods in Amazonia and Borneo in order to measure properties of both the forests and their soils. While the two regions compared were climactically similar with each region possessing a range of soil conditions, researchers found that the trees were far more productive in one area.

"In Borneo, dipterocarps-a family of large trees with winged seeds-produce wood more quickly than their neighbors," said Lindsay Banin, one of the researchers, in a news release. "This means that they have evolved something special and unique-what exactly this is remains a mystery. Dipterocarps are known to make special relationships with fungi in the soil, so they may be able to tap into scarce nutrient resources. Or they may be trading-off growth of other plant parts."

Borneo's trees actually are taller for a given diameter than in Amazonia. This means that they gain more biomass per unit of diameter growth. This, in turn, partially explains the differences seen in the study.

"One big question in ecology is whether plant species composition matters at all to fundamental ecosystem functions such as productivity, or carbon storage," said Oliver Phillips, one of the researchers, in a news release. "The fact the dipterocarp-dominated forests achieve faster wood growth than even the most diverse forests in the Amazon shows that the random evolutionary histories of continents can determine their whole ecology. Identity really does matter."

The findings reveal a bit more about trees in these areas and how they can be far more productive in one region than another.

The findings are published in the Journal of Ecology.