In a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications, Dr. Andrew Reinmann (Department of Geography and Environmental Science) and his colleagues show that, in contrast to tropical systems, fragmented temperate forests exhibit increases in carbon storage and rates of sequestration relative to intact forests. These paradigm-shifting findings came from analyses of more than 48,000 forest inventory plots across the 20-state region of the northeastern U.S. Importantly, the authors emphatically note that this research does not argue for proactive forest fragmentation as a prescription to increase carbon sequestration because increased carbon storage in fragmented forests does not come close to offsetting the loss of terrestrial carbon storage and sequestration capacity associated with the forest lost.

Read article at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27373-7