Wood density information for a large number of tropical tree species is presented in units of ovendry weight in grams per cubic centimeter of green volume.The data base includes 1,280 entries from tropical America (40 percent), tropical Asia (36 percent), and tropical Africa (24 percent).The most frequent wood densities were 0.5 to 0.8 g/cm3.In all three tropical continents, the most frequent class was the 0.5 to 0.6 g/cm3.These data are useful for a wide variety of practical and scientific applications, including the estimation of forest stand biomass from wood volume data.

Data on stemwood biomass and mean annual biomass increment (MABI) for seven tropical tree plantation species were synthesized from the literature to evaluate species adaptibility and potential yields in different environments. Stemwood biomass ranged from < 1 to 712 t ha−1, and MABI ranged from about 1 to 30 t ha−1 year−1 in plantations of Pinus caribaea, Tectona grandis, Pinus patula, Gmelina arborea, Cupressus lusitanica, Eucalyptus grandis, and Albizia falcataria. Stemwood biomass and MABI varied with species, plantation age, and climate. Linear models best described the relationship between stemwood biomass and age of plantation, and the slopes of these equations (MABIs) varied among species and among life zones for a given species. Significant relations were found between stemwood biomass and MABI and water availability (the ratio of temperature to precipitation, T/P). In general, stemwood biomass and MABI decreased at high (arid) and low (very humid) T/P ratios. Each tree species had an optimal T/P at which its maximum stemwood biomass and MABI occurred. Other site factors, such as soil fertility, modified plantation response to climate.

To determine the present and future role of tropical tree plantations in the global carbon budget, data on rates of plantation establishment and their commercial volumes, by species groups and age-classes, were gathered and converted to biomass and ultimately to carbon fluxes. The rate of plantation establishment has increased dramatically since the 1940's, resulting in an area in 1980 of about 11 × 106 ha with more than 60% of this area planted during the last decade. Total biomass of plantations is estimated to range from 0.65 × 109 to 2.22 × 109 t or about 1% of the biomass of natural forests. Most of the biomass (79%) is in the 6- to 30-year-old plantations. We estimate that tropical plantations are a small sink of atmospheric carbon of 0.03–0.11 × 109 t C/year, most of which occurs in the two youngest age-classes. Although this flux is small, it may be sufficient to balance the small source of carbon from harvesting forests and other land-use changes in the temperate zone.