We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Soil geochemistry – and not topography – as a major driver of carbon allocation, stocks, and dynamics in forests and soils of African tropical montane ecosystems.
- Authors
Bukombe, Benjamin; Bauters, Marijn; Boeckx, Pascal; Cizungu, Landry Ntaboba; Cooper, Matthew; Fiener, Peter; Kidinda, Laurent Kidinda; Makelele, Isaac; Muhindo, Daniel Iragi; Rewald, Boris; Verheyen, Kris; Doetterl, Sebastian
- Abstract
Summary: The lack of field‐based data in the tropics limits our mechanistic understanding of the drivers of net primary productivity (NPP) and allocation. Specifically, the role of local edaphic factors – such as soil parent material and topography controlling soil fertility as well as water and nutrient fluxes – remains unclear and introduces substantial uncertainty in understanding net ecosystem productivity and carbon (C) stocks.Using a combination of vegetation growth monitoring and soil geochemical properties, we found that soil fertility parameters reflecting the local parent material are the main drivers of NPP and C allocation patterns in tropical montane forests, resulting in significant differences in below‐ to aboveground biomass components across geochemical (soil) regions.Topography did not constrain the variability in C allocation and NPP. Soil organic C stocks showed no relation to C input in tropical forests. Instead, plant C input seemingly exceeded the maximum potential of these soils to stabilize C.We conclude that, even after many millennia of weathering and the presence of deeply developed soils, above‐ and belowground C allocation in tropical forests, as well as soil C stocks, vary substantially due to the geochemical properties that soils inherit from parent material.
- Subjects
FOREST dynamics; GEOCHEMISTRY; TOPOGRAPHY; SOIL dynamics; VEGETATION monitoring; TROPICAL forests; FOREST soils; TROPICAL ecosystems
- Publication
New Phytologist, 2022, Vol 236, Issue 5, p1676
- ISSN
0028-646X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/nph.18469