Quantifying Carbon Losses Associated with Photorespiration and Drought Stress in Two Dominant Mediterranean Pine Species

Abstract

Photorespiration and drought-induced stomatal closure are two important physiological constraints that reduce carbon assimilation and productivity in C3 forest trees under Mediterranean climatic conditions. Türkiye’s two dominant commercial pine species, Pinus brutia Ten. (Calabrian pine) and Pinus nigra J.F. Arnold subsp. pallasiana (Anatolian black pine), together cover approximately 8.15 million hectares. This study integrated published gas-exchange measurements, radiation-use efficiency estimates from MODIS, official forest inventory data, and dendrochronological growth records into a counterfactual accounting framework and propagated parameter uncertainty by Monte Carlo simulation (N = 40,000 draws). The two constraints jointly reduced weighted-mean net primary productivity (NPP) from a radiation-limited potential of 5.61 to an actual 3.46 Mg C ha−1 yr−1, a reduction of 37.9% (95% CI 32.2–43.4%). Decomposition shows that 47.7% of this loss is the obligate metabolic cost of C3 carboxylation, which no silvicultural intervention can address, while 52.3%—20.1 of the 37.9 percentage points—is drought-attributable. Nationally, the deficit corresponds to 64.3 Mt CO2 yr−1 of forgone sequestration (47.8–81.2) and 34.4 Mm3 yr−1 of forgone stemwood-volume equivalent (24.9–44.5), of which approximately 20.6 Mm3 would be merchantable, giving an annual economic deficit of USD 3.37 billion (2.40–6.48). Filtering the drought-attributable component for eligible area, recovery efficiency, additionality, leakage, and permanence yields approximately 1.0 Mt CO2 yr−1 of potentially issuable credits, fewer than two per cent of the headline figure. Eco-physiological suppression of this magnitude is currently invisible in national forest carbon accounting, and its recognition bears directly on dynamic baseline design and on the credibility of offsets generated from Mediterranean conifer forests.