Worldwide, dead and decaying wood releases roughly 10.9 gigatons of carbon every year. This is roughly 115% of annual fossil fuel emissions, a new study shows. 27 Sept 2021

Dead Forests Are Dangerous for the Planet — Here’s Why

Sep 27, 2021 3:39AM EDT

Dead and decaying trees contribute more to climate change than all human transport, a new study shows. Joe Dudeck / Unsplash

Worldwide, dead and decaying wood releases roughly 10.9 gigatons of carbon every year. This is roughly 115% of annual fossil fuel emissions, a new study shows.

The research, published in Nature, is the first time that researchers have been able to quantify the contribution of deadwood to the global carbon cycle.

“Until now, little has been known about the role of dead trees,” study co-author David Lindenmayer from The Australian National University (ANU) told SciTech Daily. “We know living trees play a vital role in absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But up until now, we didn’t know what happens when those trees decompose. It turns out, it has a massive impact.”

Natural processes, including temperature and insects, drive tree decomposition, Lindenmayer said. This results in a recycling of nutrients that is critically important in forests because so many organisms that comprise the base of the food chain rely on those nutrients to survive.

In fact, “decomposition can’t happen without wood-boring insects,” SciTechDaily reported. Turns out, wood-boring insects like termites and Longicorn beetles accelerate deadwood decomposition and are even more important to carbon cycling than previously thought. Insects account for 29% of deadwood carbon release every year, the study found.

This is more intense in tropical regions with high wood mass and more rapid rates of decomposition, SciTech Daily reported. Rainforests account for 93% of deadwood carbon release from around the globe, the research showed.