Africa’s ecosystems have an important role in global carbon dynamics, yet consensus is lacking regarding the amount of carbon stored in woody vegetation and the potential impacts to carbon storage in response to changes in climate, land use and other Anthropocene risks. In this study, we explore the socioenvironmental conditions that have shaped the contemporary distribution of woody vegetation across sub-Saharan Africa and evaluate ecosystem response to multiple scenarios of climate change, anthropogenic pressures and fire disturbance. Our projections suggest climate change will have a small but negative effect on above-ground woody biomass at the continental scale, and the compounding effects of population growth, increasing human pressures and socioclimatic-driven changes in fire behaviour further exacerbate climate-driven trends. Relatively modest continental-scale trends obscure much larger regional perturbations, with climatic and anthropogenic factors leading to increased carbon storage potential in East Africa, offset by large deficits in West, Central and Southern Africa.

非洲的生态系统在全球碳动态中发挥着重要作用，但在木本植被中储存的碳量以及应对气候变化、土地利用和其他人类世风险对碳储存的潜在影响方面缺乏共识。在这项研究中，我们探索了影响撒哈拉以南非洲地区木本植被当代分布的社会环境条件，并评估了生态系统对气候变化、人为压力和火灾干扰等多种情景的响应。我们的预测表明，气候变化将对大陆尺度的地上木质生物量产生微小但负面的影响，而人口增长、人类压力增加和社会气候驱动的火灾行为变化的复合影响进一步加剧了气候驱动的趋势。