Yannick Enock Bocko

Une meilleure connaissance de la composition floristique, la structure et la dynamique des mosaïques forêt/savane du littoral congolais est nécessaire pour apprécier leur résilience face au changement climatique et la pression anthropique d’une part. Et d’autre part, pour la mise en place des politiques de leur gestion durable. La présente étude vi...

Peatlands of the central Congo Basin have accumulated carbon over millennia. They currently store some 29 billion tonnes of carbon in peat. However, our understanding of the controls on peat carbon accumulation and loss and the vulnerability of this stored carbon to climate change is in its infancy. Here we present a new model of tropical peatland...

Inundation dynamics are the primary control on greenhouse gas emissions from peatlands. Situated in the central Congo Basin, the Cuvette Centrale is the largest tropical peatland complex. However, our knowledge of the spatial and temporal variations in its water levels is limited. By addressing this gap, we can quantify the relationship between the...

The world’s largest tropical peatland lies in the central Congo Basin. Raphia laurentii De Wild, the most abundant palm in these peatlands, forms dominant to mono-dominant stands across approximately 45% of the peatland area. R. laurentii is a trunkless palm with fronds up to 20 m long. Owing to its morphology, there is currently no allometric equa...

La Cuvette centrale est le plus vaste complexe de tourbières tropicales au monde, qui s'étend sur environ 145 000 km2 en République du Congo et en République démocratique du Congo. Ce complexe stocke environ 30,6 Pg C, soit l'équivalent de trois années d'émissions mondiales de dioxyde de carbone, et représente désormais le premier site Ramsar trans...

The forested swamps of the central Congo Basin store approximately 30 billion metric tonnes of carbon in peat1,2. Little is known about the vulnerability of these carbon stocks. Here we investigate this vulnerability using peat cores from a large interfluvial basin in the Republic of the Congo and palaeoenvironmental methods. We find that peat accu...

Tree height and crown area are important predictors of aboveground biomass but difficult to measure on the ground. Numerous allometric models have been established to predict tree height from diameter (H–D) and crown area from diameter (CA–D). A major challenge is to select the most precise and accurate allometric model among existing ones, dependi...

The worlds largest tropical peatland lies in the central Congo Basin. Raphia laurentii De Wild. is a palm which forms dominant to mono-dominant stands across ca. 45 % of the peatland area. However, a lack of allometric equation for this canopy-forming trunkless palm with fronds up to 20 m long, means that this it is currently excluded from abovegro...

The world’s largest tropical peatland complex is found in the central Congo Basin. However, there is a lack of in situ measurements to understand the peatland’s distribution and the amount of carbon stored in it. So far, peat in this region has been sampled only in largely rain-fed interfluvial basins in the north of the Republic of the Congo. Here...

The Central Congo Basin is home to the largest peat swamp in the tropics. Two major vegetation types overlay the peat: hardwood trees, and palms (mostly the trunkless Raphia laurentii variety), with each dominant in different locations. The cause of the location of these differently composed swamp areas is not understood. We investigated their dist...

Data capturing multiple axes of tree size and shape, such as a tree's stem diameter, height and crown size, underpin a wide range of ecological research - from developing and testing theory on forest structure and dynamics, to estimating forest carbon stocks and their uncertainties, and integrating remote sensing imagery into forest monitoring prog...

The Cuvette Centrale is the largest tropical peatland complex in the world, covering approximately 145,000 km2 across the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It stores ca. 30.6 Pg C, the equivalent of three years of global carbon dioxide emis- sions and is now the first trans-natio- nal Ramsar site. Despite its size and importan...

There is increasing interest in altitude effects on structural attributes and aboveground biomass (AGB) in tropical forests. However, we continue to lack a clear understanding of relationships between structural attributes and AGB along altitudinal gradients in Central Africa. Using a new network of 76 permanent plots of 0.5 ha, the relationships b...

African monodominant forests are frequently formed by Gilbertiodendron dewevrei (De Wild.) J. Leonard and commonly found close to mixed forests. However, previous studies have ignored differences between these two forest types in height-diameter allometry, which is extremely important for aboveground biomass (AGB) estimates. This study aims to eval...

Significance The responses of tropical forests to heat and drought are critical uncertainties in predicting the future impacts of climate change. The 2015–2016 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) resulted in unprecedented heat and low precipitation across the tropics, including in the very poorly studied African tropical forest region. We assess Af...

Tropical forests are the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth. While better understanding of these forests is critical for our collective future, until quite recently efforts to measure and monitor them have been largely disconnected. Networking is essential to discover the answers to questions that transcend borders and the horizons of...

Aim Tree crowns determine light interception, carbon and water exchange. Thus, understanding the factors causing tree crown allometry to vary at the tree and stand level matters greatly for the development of future vegetation modelling and for the calibration of remote sensing products. Nevertheless, we know little about large‐scale variation and...

Aim: Tree crowns determine light interception, carbon and water exchange. Thus, understanding the factors causing tree crown allometry to vary at the tree and stand level matters greatly for the development of future vegetation modelling and for the calibration of remote sensing products. Nevertheless, we know little about large‐scale variation and...

The world's most extensive tropical peatlands occur in the Cuvette Centrale depression in the Congo Basin, which stores 30.6 petagrams of carbon (95% CI, 6.3-46.8). Improving our understanding of the genesis, development and functioning of these under-studied peatlands requires knowledge of their topography and, in particular, whether the peat surf...

Structurally intact tropical forests sequestered about half of the global terrestrial carbon uptake over the 1990s and early 2000s, removing about 15 per cent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Climate-driven vegetation models typically predict that this tropical forest ‘carbon sink’ will continue for decades. Here we assess trends in the c...

Structurally intact tropical forests sequestered about half of the global terrestrial carbon uptake over the 1990s and early 2000s, removing about 15 per cent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions1–3. Climate-driven vegetation models typically predict that this tropical forest ‘carbon sink’ will continue for decades4,5. Here we assess trends in...

The recent publication of the first spatially explicit map of peatlands in the Cuvette Centrale, central Congo Basin, reveals it to be the most extensive tropical peatland complex, at ca. 145,500 km². With an estimated 30.6 Pg of carbon stored in these peatlands, there are now questions about whether these carbon stocks are under threat and, if so,...

The estimation and monitoring of the huge amount of carbon contained in tropical forests, and specifically in the above-ground biomass (AGB) of trees, is needed for the successful implementation of climate change mitigation strategies. Its accuracy depends on the availability of reliable allometric equations to convert forest inventory data into AG...

Carbon is continuously being removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis and stored in carbon pools (live, dead, and soil carbon) of forest ecosystems. However, carbon stock in dead wood and of trees with diameters at breast height (dbh) between 5 and 10 cm is often not considered in many studies carried out in the Congo Basin Forest. The relatio...

The data of carbon stock of central African swamps forests are very few. This study carried out an assessment of the carbon stock of living biomass and coarse woody debris of three biotopes (flooded forest, seasonal flooded forest, and terra firm forest) of Likouala swamp forest (North of Congo). The average of the carbon stock are 190.72±98.7 tC/h...

Peatlands are carbon-rich ecosystems that cover just three per cent of Earth's land surface, but store one-third of soil carbon. Peat soils are formed by the build-up of partially decomposed organic matter under waterlogged anoxic conditions. Most peat is found in cool climatic regions where unimpeded decomposition is slower, but deposits are also...

Trees species diversity, richness, and similarity were studied in fifteen plots of the tropical rainforests in the northeast of the Republic of Congo, based on trees inventories conducted on fifteen 0.25 ha plots installed along different types of forests developed on terra firma, seasonally flooded, and on flooded terra. In all of the plots instal...

Au moment où la gestion durable des écosystèmes forestiers requiert une parfaite connaissance de la flore, celle du Congo en général et particulièrement celle des forêts marécageuses du nord-Congo, demeure encore peu connue. La présente étude vise à contribuer à une meilleure caractérisation de la diversité floristique des forêts marécageuses de la...

The study aimed to estimate the carbon stocks of above-and below-ground biomass in Lesio-louna forest (Republic of Congo). The methodology of allometric equations was used to measure the carbon stocks of Lesio-louna moist forest. The research was done with 22 circular plots, each 1,256 m 2. In the 22 plots, we made measurements on a total of 347 tr...

The paper contributes new data on fine root production in tropical forests from the Teke Plateau, an underexplored area of Africa that is dominated by grove forests. Importantly, this study contributes to our understanding of the role of the successional age of vegetation and the impacts of water availability on ecosystem functions, which may assis...

s Tree aboveground biomass (AGB) distribution and carbon storage in different DBH (diameter at breast height) classes were calculated and compared between three different humid forest of the north of Congo (peat land's forest, seasonally flooded forest, and terra ferma forest) mainly in the forest of Likouala. AGB carbon stock varies in this study...

The research was aimed to estimate the carbon stocks of above-ground biomass (AGB) in Lesio-louna forest in Republic of Congo. The methodology of Allometric equations was used to measure the carbon stock of Lesio-louna tropical rainforest. The research was done with six circular plots each 40 m of diameter, with a distance of 100 m between each plo...

The study was aimed to estimate the carbon stocks of above- and below-ground biomass in Lesio-louna forest of Congo. The methodology of allometric equations was used to measure the carbon stocks of Lesio-louna natural forest. We are based pre- cisely on the model II which is also called non-destructive method or indirect method of measuring carbon...