Carbon dynamics and environmental controls of a hilly tea plantation in Southeast China

Tea plantations are widely distributed and continuously expanding across subtropical China in recent years. However, carbon flux exchanges from tea plantation ecosystems are poorly understood at the ecosystem level. In this study, we use the eddy covariance technique to quantify the magnitude and temporal variations of the net ecosystem exchange (NEE) in tea plantation in Southeast China over four years (2014-2017). The result showed that the tea plantation was a net carbon sink, with an annual NEE that ranged from -182.40 g C m-2 to -301.51 g C m-2, which was a much lower carbon sequestration potential than other ecosystems in subtropical China. Photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) explained the highest proportion of the variation in NEE and gross primary productivity (GPP) (for NEE: F=389.89, P < 0.01; for GPP: F=1018.04, P < 0.01), and air temperature (Ta) explained the highest proportion of the variation in ecosystem respiration (RE) (F=13141.81, P < 0.01). The strong ...