Mountain forest maps predicted tree carbon better than soil carbon
WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS
Across ninety plots, soil made up 71.5 percent of measured ecosystem carbon and biomass 24.9 percent. Random forests predicted plot-scale biomass and total carbon better than soil or deadwood, and performed less reliably when extrapolated spatially.
WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ
Canopy greenness is not a measurement of every carbon pool. Carbon plans need component sampling and explicit uncertainty for terrain and unobserved extremes.
CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY
A specific mountain reserve and uneven plot coverage; the reserve-wide maps are relative spatial guides, not reliable per-pixel carbon inventories.
SOURCE
Frontiers in Plant Science — Zong et al. (2026)
View original evidence ↗
Gansu field plots expose uncertainty hidden beneath a mapped total.
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