Above-ground biomass of Moso bamboo forests in China influenced by climate, soil and topography: A meta-analysis

Moso bamboo is an essential forest resource in China, covering the largest area and stock of any bamboo species. Four provinces (Fujian, Hunan, Zhejiang, Jiangxi) each have more than 70 million hectares, collectively accounting for 80 % of the total area of Moso bamboo in China. We named these four provinces as the core area for Moso bamboo and the remaining area in other provinces as non-core area. There has been limited research on how climate, topography, and soil factors collectively affect Moso bamboo biomass in both the core and non-core areas. To better understand the variations, data on DBH and individual biomass were gathered from 348 plots from 25 literature sources and a total of 18 plots from four field surveys conducted in 2019. We found evidence that the above-ground biomass of Moso bamboo forests is influenced by a combination of climate, soil nutrients and topography, with different factors playing a more significant role in the core and non-core areas. Moso bamboo had higher individual above-ground biomass in the core area compared to the non-core area. In the core area, above-ground biomass of Moso bamboo was more influenced by climate than by soil nutrients. In this area, annual minimum temperature had a negative effect on above-ground biomass, while precipitation had a positive effect. In contrast, soil total nitrogen had the largest positive effect on above-ground biomass in non-core area. These findings may contribute to the development of a future biomass model for Moso bamboo forests.