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I've read that forests are important because they absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen to the atmoshpere 1. But other places say that this is false for a mature forest:

"On average, then, this mature forest has no net flux of carbon dioxide or oxygen to or from the atmosphere, unless we cut it all down for logging," Sarmiento said. "The ocean works the same way. Most of the photosynthesis is counterbalanced by an equal and opposite amount of respiration." 2

It seems that phytoplakton are the responsibles of carbon dioxide fixing and oxygen emission.

Tiny ocean plants called phytoplankton contribute 50 to 85 percent of the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere.3

So are there any solid studies that show what are the "lungs" of the planet, if any?

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    Is skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/6804/2703 a satisfactory explanation, or answer to your question?
    – ChrisW
    Aug 10, 2013 at 22:08
  • one thing to note about a mature forest is that the trees will die fall and decompose and new ones will replace it, this will produce oxygen (or more accurately bind carbon)
    – ratchet freak
    Aug 11, 2013 at 13:08
  • @ratchetfreak: Yes, this is the essence of the answer pointed to by ChrisW. I'm hoping we can close as duplicate.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Aug 11, 2013 at 13:10
  • Yes, mine's a duplicate. Should I delete the question?
    – jinawee
    Aug 11, 2013 at 13:32
  • 1
    @jinawee No need to delete it. It will get closed as a duplicate, but leave it here as a signpost for search engines.
    – user5582
    Aug 12, 2013 at 8:11

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