Limited increases in savanna carbon stocks over decades of fire suppression

Savannas cover a fifth of the land surface and contribute a third of terrestrial net primary production, accounting for three-quarters of global area burned and more than half of global fire-driven carbon emissions 1 – 3 . Fire suppression and afforestation have been proposed as tools to increase carbon sequestration in these ecosystems 2 , 4 . A robust quantification of whole-ecosystem carbon storage in savannas is lacking however, especially under altered fire regimes. Here we provide one of the first direct estimates of whole-ecosystem carbon response to more than 60 years of fire exclusion in a mesic African savanna. We found that fire suppression increased whole-ecosystem carbon storage by only 35.4 ± 12% (mean ± standard error), even though tree cover increased by 78.9 ± 29.3%, corresponding to total gains of 23.0 ± 6.1 Mg C ha −1 at an average of about 0.35 ± 0.09 Mg C ha −1 year −1 , more than an order of magnitude lower than previously assumed 4 . Frequently burned savannas had substantial belowground carbon, especially in biomass and deep soils. These belowground reservoirs are not fully considered in afforestation or fire-suppression schemes but may mean that the decadal sequestration potential of savannas is negligible, especially weighed against concomitant losses of biodiversity and function. A direct estimate is provided of the whole-ecosystem carbon response to fire suppression in a mesic African savanna, showing limited increase in carbon storage despite a large increase in tree cover.