Carbon dioxide exchange and growth of a pine plantation

The exchange of materials between the atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems is important to an understanding of the cycling of essential elements, the deposition of materials from the atmosphere and the entrance of pollutants into the forest ecosystems. This paper reports the results of measurements of carbon dioxide exchange in a vigorously growing pine plantation. Measurement data were incorporated into a model used to estimate annual carbon dioxide exchange. The measured annual biomass accumulation in the same plantation was used to determine a carbon dioxide to biomass conversion efficiency. Carbon dioxide exchange was 10.5 t/ha and biomass accumulation was 4.5 t/ha. The conversion efficiency of carbon dioxide to biomass is about 25% less than the theoretical chemical conversion efficiency. Considering the possible errors in both the estimates, this is very good agreement.