Riparian reforestoration addresses climate change and biodiversity conservation

Former agricultural field undergoing riparian restoration in the Cosumnes River Preserve, near Galt, California.
Photo by Kristen E. Dybala

Forests store tremendous amounts of carbon in the trees and soil, and provide valuable habitat for wildlife, making reforestation an important strategy for addressing both climate change and biodiversity conservation concerns. But reforestations designed to maximize carbon storage may not be as successful at providing habitat. In a paper recently published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, colleagues and I examined how carbon storage and bird communities in the Cosumnes River Preserve relate to forest density, canopy and understory cover, and forest age.

​Key findings include:

1. After 20-30 years, reforested areas provided habitat to 4 times as many birds and stored twice as much soil carbon as the baseline site.
2. Within the mature reforested areas, there was substantial variation in carbon storage and bird density and diversity, suggesting an opportunity to optimize restoration design and management to maximize the carbon and biodiversity benefits.
3. We identified a trade-off in tree density, where bird abundance and diversity decreased in very dense areas of the forests but carbon storage was high.

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Forest restoration can meet multiple goals simultaneously, but restoration design and management should carefully consider trade-offs among goals to maximize effectiveness. 

Citation:
Dybala KE, Steger K, Walsh RG, Smart DR, Gardali T, Seavy NE (2019) Optimizing carbon storage and biodiversity co-benefits in reforested riparian zones. Journal of Applied Ecology56:343-353. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.13272

Data set:
Data from: Optimizing carbon storage and biodiversity co-benefits in reforested riparian zones. Dryad Digital Repository. doi: 10.5061/dryad.2h63d10.

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