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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
agricultural and biological sciences
Primary productivity of natural grass ecosystems of the tropics: A reappraisal
Plant and Soil, Volume 115, No. 2, Year 1989
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Description
Studies of net primary production in four contrasting tropical grasslands show that when full account is taken of losses of plant organs above- and below-ground these ecosystems are far more productive than earlier suggested. Previous values have mainly been provided by the International Biological Programme (IBP), where estimates of production were based on a change in vegetation mass alone and would not necessarily have taken full account of organ losses and turnover. Calculation at three of our sites based on estblished methodology using changes in plant mass alone (i.e. that used by the International Biological Programme, IBP) proved to be serious underestimates of when acount was taken of losses simultaneously with measurement of change in plant mass. Accounting for the turnover of material at these three sites resulted in productivities up to five times higher than were obtained using the standard IBP procedure. An emergent C4 grass stand at a fourth site in the Amazon achieved a productivity which approached the maximum recorded for agricultural crops. In this case, productivity values, when organ losses were taken into account, only slightly exceeded that obtained with IBP methods. The findings reported here have wider implications, in prediction of global carbon cycling, remote sensing of plant productivity and impact assessment of conversion to arable cropping systems. © 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Authors & Co-Authors
Long, S. P.
United Kingdom, Colchester
University of Essex
García-Moya, Edmundo
Mexico, Texcoco
Colegio de Postgraduados Campus Montecillo
Imbamba, Simeon K.
Kenya, Nairobi
University of Nairobi
Kamnalrut, Apinan
Thailand, Hatyai
Prince of Songkla University
Piedade, Maria Teresa Fernandez
Brazil, Manaus
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia
Scurlock, Jonathan M.O.
United Kingdom, London
King's College London
Shen, Y. K.
China, Shanghai
Cas Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences / Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology
Hall, David Oakley
United Kingdom, London
King's College London
Statistics
Citations: 89
Authors: 8
Affiliations: 7
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1007/BF02202584
ISSN:
0032079X
e-ISSN:
15735036
Research Areas
Environmental