Comparative productivity of forest and grass ecosystems

Among the land-dominated natural formations, like forests and grasslands, the attention of  humanity is drawn at present primarily to the former. It is the forests of temperate and tropical zones that are  supposed to play an important role in the regulation of biosphere processes on Earth, including the current  climate. This almost completely ignores the importance of herbaceous systems widely represented by steppes and  meadows. The overwhelming superiority of forests over grass ecosystems in productivity and phytomass stock  is recognized. A comparative analysis of production estimates (t/ha/year) and of organic material stocks  (t/ha) in the underground and aboveground parts of herbaceous and forest ecosystems accumulated in the scientific  literature has shown that meadows and steppes are not inferior (and often even superior) to forests both in the  mass of accumulated organic matter and in annual growth of phytomass. The only difference is that organic  production is localized in forest communities mainly in the aboveground part as considerable wood (trunk)  mass while it is equally or more shifted underground in herbaceous communities in the form of soil organic matter.  The leaf (photosynthesizing) masses of herbaceous and forest communities are close in quantity, respectively, and  their synthesis of organic products and carbon exchange with the atmosphere are also similar. The author  argues that the steppe and meadow ecosystems do not lag behind forests in organic mass and participation  in biosphere processes, thus deserving no less effort for their preservation.