Use of a flexible chamber to measure stem respiration

Esders, Eike, M; Klemm, Otto; Breuer, Bettina; Lai, Yen-Jen; Yu, Jui.Chu; Lai, I-Ling

Abstract

We present a flexible chamber to measure the CO2 efflux from tree bark. The easy-to-use chamber is made of stainless steel and is clamped around an individual tree stem section; it uses a portable gas analyzer to retrieve the stem respiration value. Using the individual data points in combination with data from a forest inventory, the data can, in principle, be up-scaled to achieve the stand-scale stem respiration. We performed a feasibility study in a young forest plantation in tropical southern Taiwan, which yielded robust and meaningful results.