R code to reproduce analyses of aboveground carbon stocks and associated plant diversity in fragmented and continuous forest sites in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, 2017

The R code "carbon_stock_calculations.R" estimates aboveground carbon stocks for 49 plots in 14 fragmented forest sites and 4 continuous forest sites in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, using the vegetation dataset ‘Vegetation and habitat data for fragmented and continuous forest sites in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, 2017’. The 14 fragmented sites were all in Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil-certified oil palm plantations, and are hereafter termed 'conservation set-asides'. The code also estimates the aboveground carbon stocks of oil palm plantations for comparison.

The R code "analyses_and_figures.R" runs analyses and makes figures of aboveground carbon stocks and associated plant diversity for these sites, as presented in Fleiss et al. (2020)

This R code was created in order to investigate the following: (1) to establish the value of conservation set-asides for increasing oil palm plantation aboveground carbon stocks; (2) to establish whether set-asides with high aboveground carbon stocks can have co-benefits for plant diversity; (3) to compare the carbon stocks and vegetation structure of conservation set-asides with that of continuous forest, including assessing tree regeneration potential by examining variation in seedling density; (4) to examine potential drivers of variation in aboveground carbon stocks of conservation set-asides (topography, degree of fragmentation, and soil parameters); (5) to scale-up the estimates of the aboveground carbon stocks of conservation set-asides, in order to predict average carbon stocks of oil palm plantations with and without set-asides, and for varying coverage of set-asides across the plantation.