Tropical forests play a fundamental role in mitigating climate change through storage of carbon in above- and below- ground biomass. Their mitigation potential is, however, affected by significant greenhouse gas emissions through tropical deforestation or forest degradation. Mitigating degradation caused by conventional logging is therefore an important challenge for silvicultural management, and various reduced impact logging techniques seek to reduce biomass loss and other logging impacts during forest logging activities.

Little knowledge exists about the potential of sustainable management for maintaining and restoring the climate change mitigation capacity of tropical forests. Our research contributes to knowledge about this potential, as our aim is to evaluate the above-ground biomass (AGB) stock of tropical forests managed for sustainable timber production and compare it with that of intact primary forests. We also determine the environmental and spatial factors that influence AGB.

We estimated the AGB of 141 permanent sampling plots in Costa Rican tropical forests (71 plots set up in areas managed for timber production forests and 70 plots set up in areas with intact primary forests) using data for the 2000–2015 period. We compared the AGB of timber production forests with that of primary forest using linear mixed models and examined the relationship between forest AGB and climate, soil fertility and spatial variables (PCNM eigenvalues) using variation partitioning (VARPART) and multiple linear regression in the mixed model framework.

Mean AGB was higher in forest plots set up in areas managed for timber production than in plots set up in areas with intact primary forests. In VARPART, spatial variables had the strongest effect on AGB with a small but significant effect of soil fertility. Regression showed potassium levels in the soil to be positively related to AGB. There was no significant effect of climate, probably because of the short temperature and precipitation gradients.

Sustainable forest management in these Costa Rican forests managed for timber production has enabled them to store as much carbon in biomass as primary forests, due to the low intensity logging and sustainability criteria stipulated by the country’s forestry legislation. As a result, sustainable forest management, in addition to providing a sustainable timber ecosystem service, is also a natural climate solution, maintaining the mitigation potential of Costa Rica’s tropical forests in the current climate context.

热带森林通过在地上和地下生物量中储存碳，在减缓气候变化方面发挥着重要作用。然而，它们的减缓潜力受到热带森林砍伐或森林退化导致的大量温室气体排放的影响。因此，减轻传统伐木造成的退化是造林管理的一个重要挑战，各种减少影响的伐木技术试图减少森林伐木活动期间的生物量损失和其他伐木影响。

关于可持续管理在维持和恢复热带森林减缓气候变化能力方面的潜力知之甚少。我们的研究有助于了解这种潜力，因为我们的目标是评估为可持续木材生产而管理的热带森林的地上生物量 (AGB) 存量，并将其与完整原始森林的存量进行比较。我们还确定了影响 AGB 的环境和空间因素。

我们使用 2000 年至 2015 年期间的数据估算了哥斯达黎加热带森林 141 个永久采样地块的 AGB（71 个地块位于木材生产林管理区域，70 个地块位于原始森林完好的区域）。我们使用线性混合模型比较了木材生产林的 AGB 与原始林的 AGB，并使用混合模型中的变异分区 (VARPART) 和多元线性回归检查了森林 AGB 与气候、土壤肥力和空间变量（PCNM 特征值）之间的关系框架。

在木材生产管理区设立的林地的平均 AGB 高于在原始森林完好地区设立的林地。在 VARPART 中，空间变量对 AGB 的影响最强，对土壤肥力的影响很小但很显着。回归表明土壤中的钾含量与 AGB 呈正相关。气候没有显着影响，可能是因为温度和降水梯度较短。

由于该国林业立法规定的低强度采伐和可持续性标准，这些为木材生产而管理的哥斯达黎加森林的可持续森林管理使其能够在生物质中储存与原始森林一样多的碳。因此，可持续森林管理除了提供可持续的木材生态系统服务外，也是一种自然气候解决方案，可在当前气候背景下保持哥斯达黎加热带森林的减缓潜力。