Which species perform best in carbon sequestration and storage in planted forests? A review of the potential of Pinus and Eucalyptus

Abstract

The carbon market has been attracting attention as an additional source of revenue associated with growing planted forests. In addition to the economic importance, planted forests play an essential role in mitigating climate change due to their high potential to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and store it in soil, biomass or litter. Therefore, forest cultivation and the carbon market present win-win opportunities for both the economic and ecological systems. One question that arises for those who intend to invest in planted forests projects for carbon credits trading is: which species within Pinus or Eucalyptus, performs better in Carbon Sequestration and Storage (CSS)? Based on a systematic review of the scientific literature, we ranked the cultivated species of the genus Eucalyptus and Pinus based on their CSS performance. The findings suggest that Eucalyptus performs slightly better than Pinus, given that this supremacy was reported in 60% of the studies analyzed. However, paired analysis between species show that Pinus patula , P. halepensis, and P. radiata presented better performance than Eucalyptus saligna, E. occidentalis, and E. globulus, respectively. At the same time, Eucalyptus spp., E. cloenziana, E. grandis, and E. tereticornis performed better than Pinus spp., P. armandii, P. massoniana, P. taeda, P. caribaea, and P. roxburghii, respectively. However, species' effective performance in sequestering and storing carbon depends on other issues such as technical factors, management practices, and biophysical conditions. We identified that biophysical conditions, such as the site index, soil type, soil density, stand elevation, water deficit, soil clay, aluminum content, edaphoclimatic conditions and land use change were the most important. Thus, besides the species to be cultivated, the potential for generating carbon credits by planted forests also depends on local biophysical conditions and management practices adopted.