Allometric functions of carbon content for quillay, peumo, espino and litre

Abstract

The National Forestry Corporation (CONAF) progresses in the implementation of the National Strategy for Climate Change and Vegetation Resources (ENCCRV). Under this context it is necessary to know the amount of carbon that can be contained by the Mediterranean Forest. The aim of this work was to development allometric functions to estimate carbon content in four species of the Chilean Mediterranean Forest: quillay, peumo, espino and litre. Nineteen sampling places, between Valparaíso and Biobío regions of the country, were selected for the cutting of 328 trees. Regarding the distribution of green weight between components, moisture content and basic density in espino and litre were similar, though different from quillay and peumo, which in turn showed similar levels to each other. According to these results, it could mean that there is influence of Mediterranean status over these variables. Carbon content in four species was around 49 % of the total dry biomass. Models found provided similar settings to most of those already published for these species biomass, with the advantage that only one allometric variable is required for what is proposed in this work. Quillay, peumo and espino had R² > 0.92 while espino had R² = 0.87.