Trees and soil at the forest’s edge store more carbon than we thought, studies reveal
‘We think about forests as big landscapes, but really they are chopped up into all these little segments because of the human world,” Hutyra said. In two separate studies, her research group investigated the differences in carbon storage of trees and soils along forest edges versus the interiors of temperate forests in the northeastern United States. Hutyra and her team found that trees on the edge of forest fragments grow faster than those deeper in the interior, and that soil on the edge of urban forests has a greater capacity to store carbon than previously known.
Urban Forests May be Storing More Carbon Dioxide Than They Emit
For more than a decade, Ecologist and biogeochemist Lucy Hutyra from Boston University has been studying how the planet’s “lungs” are affected when big forests are cut down into smaller areas, a phenomenon known as forest fragmentation.