Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD IOP Publishing
Résumé : Tropical forests of the Guiana Shield are the most affected by gold-mining in South America,experiencing an exponential increase in deforestation since the early 2000’s.Using yearly deforestation data encompassing Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and theBrazilian State of Amapá, we demonstrated a strong relationship between deforestation due togold-mining and gold-prices at the regional scale. In order to assess additional drivers ofdeforestation due to gold-mining, we focused on the national scale and highlighted theheterogeneity of the response to gold-prices under different political contexts. Deforestation dueto gold-mining over the Guiana Shield occurs mainly in Guyana and Suriname. On the contrary,past and current repressive policies in Amapá and French Guiana likely contribute to thedecorrelation of deforestation and gold prices. In this work, wefinally present a case studyfocusing on French Guiana and Suriname, two neighbouring countries with very different levelsof law enforcement against illegal gold-mining. We developed a modelling framework to estimatepotential deforestation leakages from French Guiana to Suriname in the border areas. Based onour assumptions, we estimated a decrease in deforestation due to gold-mining of approx. 4 300hectares in French Guiana and an increase of approx. 12 100 hectares in Suriname in response tothe active military repression of illegal gold-mining launched in French Guiana.Gold-mining in the Guiana Shield provides challenging questions regarding REDDþimplementation. These questions are discussed at the end of this study and are important topolicy makers who need to provide sustainable alternative employment to local populations inorder to ensure the effectiveness of environmental policies.
ISSN: 1748-9326

hal-01512075
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01512075
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01512075/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01512075/file/document%20%2828%29_%7B81107B08-30D1-44D2-877D-32F6DFAEF28A%7D.pdf
DOI : 10.1088/1748-9326/aa6082

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Nature Publishing Group
Résumé : While Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, the abundance of trees is skewed strongly towards relatively few 'hyperdominant' species. In addition to their diversity, Amazonian trees are a key component of the global carbon cycle, assimilating and storing more carbon than any other ecosystem on Earth. Here we ask, using a unique data set of 530 forest plots, if the functions of storing and producing woody carbon are concentrated in a small number of tree species, whether the most abundant species also dominate carbon cycling, and whether dominant species are characterized by specific functional traits. We find that dominance of forest function is even more concentrated in a few species than is dominance of tree abundance, with only ≈1% of Amazon tree species responsible for 50% of carbon storage and productivity. Although those species that contribute most to biomass and productivity are often abundant, species maximum size is also influential, while the identity and ranking of dominant species varies by function and by region.
ISSN: 2041-1723

hal-01204225
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01204225
DOI : 10.1038/ncomms7857
PRODINRA : 305614
PUBMED : 25919449

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD American Association for the Advancement of Science
Résumé : The biodiversity-productivity relationship (BPR) is foundational to our understanding of the global extinction crisis and its impacts on ecosystem functioning. Understanding BPR is critical for the accurate valuation and effective conservation of biodiversity. Using ground-sourced data from 777,126 permanent plots, spanning 44 countries and most terrestrial biomes, we reveal a globally consistent positive concave-down BPR, showing that continued biodiversity loss would result in an accelerating decline in forest productivity worldwide. The value of biodiversity in maintaining commercial forest productivity alone-US$166 billion to 490 billion per year according to our estimation-is more than twice what it would cost to implement effective global conservation. This highlights the need for a worldwide reassessment of biodiversity values, forest management strategies, and conservation priorities.
ISSN: 0036-8075

hal-01607784
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01607784
DOI : 10.1126/science.aaf8957
PRODINRA : 389856

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Ecological Society of America
Résumé : International audience
The expansion of selective logging in tropical forests may be an important source of global carbon emissions. However, the effects of logging practices on the carbon cycle have never been quantified over long periods of time. We followed the fate of more than 60 000 tropical trees over 23 years to assess changes in aboveground carbon stocks in 48 1.56-ha plots in French Guiana that represent a gradient of timber harvest intensities, with and without intensive timber stand improvement (TSI) treatments to stimulate timber tree growth. Conventional selective logging led to emissions equivalent to more than a third of aboveground carbon stocks in plots without TSI (85 Mg C/ha), while plots with TSI lost more than one-half of aboveground carbon stocks (142 Mg C/ha). Within 20 years of logging, plots without TSI sequestered aboveground carbon equivalent to more than 80% of aboveground carbon lost to logging (-70.7 Mg C/ha), and our simulations predicted an equilibrium aboveground carbon balance within 45 years of logging. In contrast, plots with intensive TSI are predicted to require more than 100 years to sequester aboveground carbon lost to emissions. These results indicate that in some tropical forests aboveground carbon storage can be recovered within half a century after conventional logging at moderate harvest intensities.
ISSN: 1051-0761

hal-00598787
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00598787

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD European Geosciences Union
Résumé : The fixation of carbon in tropical forests mainly occurs through the production of wood and leaves, both being the principal components of net primary production. Currently field and satellite observations are independently used to describe the forest carbon cycle, but the link between satellite-derived forest phenology and field-derived forest productivity remains opaque. We used a unique combination of a MODIS enhanced vegetation index (EVI) dataset, a wood production model based on climate data and direct litterfall observations at an intra-annual timescale in order to question the synchronism of leaf and wood production in tropical forests. Even though leaf and wood biomass fluxes had the same range (respectively 2.4 +/- 1.4 and 2.2 +/- 0.4 Mg C ha(-1) yr(-1)), they occurred separately in time. EVI increased with leaf renewal at the beginning of the dry season, when solar irradiance was at its maximum. At this time, wood production stopped. At the onset of the rainy season, when new leaves were fully mature and water available again, wood production quickly increased to reach its maximum in less than a month, reflecting a change in carbon allocation from short-lived pools (leaves) to long-lived pools (wood). The time lag between peaks of EVI and wood production (109 days) revealed a substantial decoupling between the leaf renewal assumed to be driven by irradiance and the water-driven wood production. Our work is a first attempt to link EVI data, wood production and leaf phenology at a seasonal timescale in a tropical evergreen rainforest and pave the way to develop more sophisticated global carbon cycle models in tropical forests.
ISSN: 1726-4170

hal-01268497
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01268497
DOI : 10.5194/bg-10-7307-2013
PRODINRA : 256018

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD MDPI
Résumé : International audience
LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) remote sensing has been shown to be a good technique for the estimation of forest parameters such as canopy heights and above ground biomass. Whilst airborne LiDAR data are in general very dense but only available over small areas due to the cost of their acquisition, spaceborne LiDAR data acquired from the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) have a coarser acquisition density associated with a global cover. It is therefore valuable to analyze the integration relevance of canopy heights estimated from LiDAR sensors with ancillary data such as geological, meteorological, and phenological variables in order to propose a forest canopy height map with good precision and high spatial resolution.In this study, canopy heights extracted from both airborne and spaceborne LiDAR, were first extrapolated from available environmental data (e.g. geology, slope, vegetation indices, etc.). The estimated canopy height maps using random forest (RF) regression from the airborne or GLAS calibration datasets showed similar precisions (RMSE better than 6.5 m). In order to improve the precision of the canopy height estimates regression-kriging (kriging of random forest regression residuals) was used. Results indicated an improvement in the RMSE (decrease from 6.5 to 4.2 m) for the regression-kriging maps from the GLAS dataset, and from 5.8 to 1.8 m for the regression-kriging map from the airborne LiDAR dataset. Finally, in order to investigate the impact of the spatial sampling of future LiDAR missions on the precision of canopy height estimates, six subsets were derived from the initial airborne LiDAR dataset with flight line spacing of 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 km (corresponding to 0.29, 0.11, 0.08, 0.05, 0.04, and 0.03 points/km² respectively). Results indicated that using the regression-kriging approach achieved a precision of 1.8 m on the canopy height map with flight line spacing of 5 km and achieved an average RMSE of 4.8m for the configuration for the 50 km flight line spacing.
ISSN: 2072-4292

hal-01361343
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01361343
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01361343/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01361343/file/mt2016-pub00048036.pdf
DOI : 10.3390/rs8030240

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Wiley
Résumé : While attention on logging in the tropics has been increasing, studies on the long-term effects of silviculture on forest dynamics and ecology remain scare and spatially limited. Indeed, most of our knowledge on tropical forests arises from studies carried out in undisturbed tropical forests. This bias is problematic given that logged and disturbed tropical forests are now covering a larger area than the so-called primary forests. A new network of permanent sample plots in logged forests, the Tropical managed Forests Observatory (TmFO), aims to fill this gap by providing unprecedented opportunities to examine long-term data on the resilience of logged tropical forests at regional and global scales. TmFO currently includes 24 experimental sites distributed across three tropical regions, with a total of 490 permanent plots and 921ha of forest inventories.
ISSN: 1402-2001

hal-01204230
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01204230
DOI : 10.1111/avsc.12125
PRODINRA : 323838

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : IGARSS 2015, Milan, ITA, 26-/07/2015 - 31/07/2015
International audience
LiDAR remote sensing has been shown to be a good technique for the estimation of forest parameters such as canopy heights and aboveground biomass. Whilst airborne LiDAR data are in general very dense but only available over small areas due to the cost of their acquisition, spaceborne LiDAR data acquired from the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) have a coarser acquisition density associated with a global cover. It is therefore valuable to analyze the integration relevance of canopy heights estimated from LiDAR sensors with ancillary data such as geological, meteorological, and phenological variables in order to propose a forest canopy height map with good precision and high spatial resolution.In this study, canopy heights extracted from both airborne and spaceborne LiDAR, were first extrapolated from available environmental data. The estimated canopy height maps using random forest (RF) regression from the airborne or GLAS calibration datasets showed similar precisions (RMSE better than 6.5 m). In order to improve the precision of the canopy height estimates regression-kriging (kriging of RF regression residuals) was used. Results indicated an improvement in the RMSE (decrease from 6.5 to 4.2 m) for the regression-kriging maps from the GLAS dataset, and from 5.8 to 1.8 m for the regression-kriging map from the airborne LiDAR dataset.
Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2015 IEEE International
Milan, Italy

hal-01244677
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01244677
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01244677/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01244677/file/mt2015-pub00044297.pdf
DOI : 10.1109/IGARSS.2015.7326729

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : Atmospheric carbon dioxide records indicate that the land surface has acted as a strong global carbon sink over recent decades, with a substantial fraction of this sink probably located in the tropics, particularly in the Amazon. Nevertheless, it is unclear how the terrestrial carbon sink will evolve as climate and atmospheric composition continue to change. Here we analyse the historical evolution of the biomass dynamics of the Amazon rainforest over three decades using a distributed network of 321 plots. While this analysis confirms that Amazon forests have acted as a long-term net biomass sink, we find a long-term decreasing trend of carbon accumulation. Rates of net increase in above-ground biomass declined by one-third during the past decade compared to the 1990s. This is a consequence of growth rate increases levelling off recently, while biomass mortality persistently increased throughout, leading to a shortening of carbon residence times. Potential drivers for the mortality increase include greater climate variability, and feedbacks of faster growth on mortality, resulting in shortened tree longevity. The observed decline of the Amazon sink diverges markedly from the recent increase in terrestrial carbon uptake at the global scale, and is contrary to expectations based on models.
ISSN: 1476-4687

hal-01204223
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01204223
DOI : 10.1038/nature14283
PRODINRA : 294797
PUBMED : 25788097

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD European Geosciences Union
Résumé : International audience
The seasonal climate drivers of the carbon cycle in tropical forests remain poorly known, although these forests account for more carbon assimilation and storage than any other terrestrial ecosystem. Based on a unique combination of seasonal pan-tropical data sets from 89 experimental sites (68 include aboveground wood productivity measurements and 35 litter productivity measurements), their associated canopy photosynthetic capacity (enhanced vegetation index, EVI) and climate, we ask how carbon assimilation and aboveground allocation are related to climate seasonality in tropical forests and how they interact in the seasonal carbon cycle. We found that canopy photosynthetic capacity seasonality responds positively to precipitation when rainfall is < 2000 mm yr(-1) (water-limited forests) and to radiation otherwise (light-limited forests). On the other hand, independent of climate limitations, wood productivity and litterfall are driven by seasonal variation in precipitation and evapotranspiration, respectively. Consequently, light-limited forests present an asynchronism between canopy photosynthetic capacity and wood productivity. First-order control by precipitation likely indicates a decrease in tropical forest productivity in a drier climate in water-limited forest, and in current light-limited forest with future rainfall < 2000 mm yr(-1).
ISSN: 1726-4170

hal-01557759
https://hal.univ-lorraine.fr/hal-01557759
https://hal.univ-lorraine.fr/hal-01557759/document
https://hal.univ-lorraine.fr/hal-01557759/file/bg-13-2537-2016.pdf
DOI : 10.5194/bg-13-2537-2016

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : International audience
The Black Curassow (Crax alector) is a large game bird with Vulnerable conservation status found in north-centralSouth America. We examined its distributional pattern across French Guiana using a large number of environmentaldescriptors at 3 scales of analysis: landscape, forest type, and microhabitat. We used a hierarchical model withtemporary emigration and imperfect detection for data collected by standard distance sampling methods at 35study sites. At the landscape scale, Black Curassow density decreased with hunting pressure and increased withsteeper slopes in both hunted and unhunted areas. Topography appeared to be a good proxy for Black Curassowecological requirements and probably reflected habitat quality. At the forest scale, population density wasnegatively correlated with the abundance of palms and Mimosoideae and positively correlated with the abundanceof Lauraceae. Botanical families did not directly influence Black Curassow distribution, but rather determined spatialpatterns by being markers of a particular forest type. At the microhabitat scale, Black Curassows used hilltops morefrequently than other parts of the local topographical gradient. Our multiscale analysis shows that this species’distribution can be explained by biotic or abiotic conditions, regardless of the scale. For conservation, werecommend maintaining connectivity between Black Curassow populations separated by hunted areas. Ourpredicted densities could be used to adapt hunting quotas across French Guiana’s forests. We show that combiningfield and remote sensing data helps to understand the ecological processes responsible for Black Curassow habitatrelationships.
The Condor Ornithological Applications

hal-01455653
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01455653
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01455653/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01455653/file/condor-15-28.1.pdf
DOI : 10.1650/CONDOR-15-28.1

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : SilviLaser 2015, La Grande Motte, FRA, 28-/09/2015 - 30/09/2015
International audience
The study provides technical guidelines to optimize sampling design parameters in the context of the implementation of biomass predictive models from airborne lidar data. Parameters under study were those easily controlled when implementing an area-based approach, i.e. lidar pulse density and both field sampling protocols and measurements. Parameters most impacting the model accuracy were identified by conducting a one-factor- at -a-time and a global sensitivity analyses. Number and size of field plot, and plot center position accuracy were identified to be the parameters most impacting model accuracy.
Proceedings of silviLaser 2015. Durrieu S. et Véga, C. (eds)
La Grande Motte, France

hal-01286833
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01286833
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01286833/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01286833/file/mt2015-pub00046522.pdf
IRSTEA : PUB00046522