Allometric equations for estimating the aboveground biomass of bamboos in northern Laos

ABSTRACT

Bamboos are dominant plants in northern Laos, where they are closely associated with local people’s livelihoods. We developed species-specific allometric equations for estimating aboveground biomass from culm size parameters (diameter at breast height [DBH] and DBH²H; H is a culm length) using 11 common bamboo species in the region. The applicability of multi-species allometric equations based on pooled data was also examined. Most species-specific allometric regressions showed significant correlations. In addition, the multi-species allometric relationships for culm biomass and aboveground biomass showed particularly high correlations (r² > 0.96), indicating the usefulness of multi-species allometric equations to estimate bamboo biomass in mixed-species bamboo forests with unknown bamboos and bamboos without species-specific allometric equations. The generally small differences in the fitness of aboveground biomass estimates between DBH and DBH²H indicate that DBH is a practical explanatory variable for biomass estimation. These species-specific and multi-species allometric equations will help in developing future work on carbon stocks and cycles in bamboo forests in this region.

KEYWORDS:

• Allometry
• carbon stocks
• culm
• fallow
• multi-species relationship

Acknowledgments

The authors thank to National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI) for kind support to our research activities, Dr. Sarawood Sungkaew for speceis identification, Ms. Miu Okawa for field measurement and villagers for their assistance of field works.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by the Transnational Doctoral Programs for Leading Professionals, Nagoya University Asian Satellite Campuses Institute.