Positive feedback between climate change, forest pests and the carbon cycle

  • Anne I. M. Arnold Büsgen Institutes Department of soil science
  • Annett Reinhardt
  • Ignacy Korczynski
  • Maren Grüning
  • Carsten Thies
Keywords: Carbon cycle, Climate change, Forest

Abstract

Forest trees under climate stress increasingly become more vulnerable to insect pests resulting in vastly defoliated swaths of forest land. Here, we simulated a forest pest mass outbreak using a microcosm incubation experiment, and show a positive feedback between climate change, forest pests and the carbon cycle. Treatments with insect faeces showed 16-fold higher fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2) and 8-fold higher fluxes of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) compared to treatments without insect faeces (control) across a four weeks period, presumably due to the input of limited nitrogen (N) and fastly decomposable carbon (C) compounds that accelerate soil decomposition processes.

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Published
2016-01-09
Section
Original Article