Climate Change and Ecosystem Services Output Efficiency in Southern Loblolly Pine Forests.
Forests provide myriad ecosystem services that are vital to humanity. With climate change, we expect to see significant changes to forests that will alter the supply of these critical services and affect human well-being. To better understand the impacts of climate change on forest-based ecosystem services, we applied a data envelopment analysis method to assess plot-level efficiency in the provision of ecosystem services in Florida natural loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) forests. Using field data for n = 16 loblolly pine forest plots, including inputs such as site index, tree density, age, precipitation, and temperatures for each forest plot, we assessed the relative plot-level production of three ecosystem services: timber, carbon sequestered, and species richness. The results suggested that loblolly pine forests in Florida were largely inefficient in the provision of these ecosystem services under current climatic conditions. Climate change had a small negative impact on the loblolly pine forests efficiency in the provision of ecosystem services. In this context, we discussed the reduction of tree density that may not improve ecosystem services production.
School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, 315 Newins Ziegler Hall, PO BOX 110410, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA. asusaeta@ufl.edu.
Andres
A
Susaeta
School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, 355 Newins-Ziegler Hall, PO BOX 110410, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA.
Damian C
DC
Adams
School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, 357 Newins Ziegler Hall, PO BOX 110410, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA.
Douglas R
DR
Carter
Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Warnell 114 Building 4, Athens, GA, 30602, USA.
Puneet
P
Dwivedi
D057965:Carbon Sequestration; D057231:Climate Change; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D017753:Ecosystem; D005431:Florida; D065928:Forests; D041603:Pinus taeda / Q000254:growth & development*
Climate change; Data envelopment analysis; Ecosystem services; Efficiency Loblolly pine