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149 results for “tropical soils”
Soil biogeochemistry across Central and South American tropical dry forests
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Symbiotic nitrogen fixation does not stimulate soil phosphatase activity under temperate and tropical trees
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Decline in diversity of tropical soil fauna under experimental warming
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Soil nutrient dissimilarity and litter nutrient limitation as major drivers of home field advantage in riparian tropical forests
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The role of soil redox conditions in microbial phosphorus cycling in humid tropical forests
Humid tropical forests are among the most productive ecosystems globally, yet they often occur on soils with high phosphorus (P) sorption capacity, lowering P availability to biota. Short-term anoxic events are thought to release sorbed P and enhance its acquisition by soil microbes. However, the actual effects of anoxic conditions on microbial P acquisition in humid tropical forest soils are surprisingly poorly studied. We used laboratory incubations of bulk soils, NanoSIMS analysis of single microbial cells, and landscape scale measurements in the Luquillo Experimental Forest (LEF), Puerto Rico to test the hypothesis that anoxic conditions increase microbial P acquisition in humid tropical forests. In laboratory and field experiments we found that microbial P uptake generally decreased under anoxic conditions, leading to high microbial carbon (C) to P ratios in anoxic soils. The decreased P acquisition under anoxic conditions was correlated with lower microbial C use efficiency (CUE), an index of microbial energy transfer in ecosystems. Phosphorus amendments to anoxic soils led to increased microbial P uptake and higher CUE suggesting that microbes were less able to access and utilize P under natural low redox conditions. Under oxic conditions, microbial C:P ratios and CUE did not respond to changes in substrate stoichiometry. These results challenge the existing paradigm by showing that anoxic conditions can decrease microbial P uptake and ultimately constrain microbial CUE. Our findings indicate that soil redox conditions tightly couple soil P and C cycles and advance our understanding of controls on P cycling in humid tropical forest ecosystems. Support for this work was provided by grants BSR-8811902, DEB-9411973, DEB-9705814 , DEB-0080538, DEB-0218039 , DEB-0620910 , DEB-1239764, DEB-1546686, and DEB-1831952 from the National Science Foundation to the University of Puerto Rico as part of the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Program. Additional support p
Dataset: Seasonality, drivers, and isotopic composition of soil CO2 fluxes from tropical forests of the Congo Basin
<p>These data sets contain data from soil CO2 flux measurements and its drivers (soil moisture, soil temperature) from lowland and montane tropical forests of the Congo Basin. Additionally, 13C values of soil emitted CO2, SOC, Leaflitter, and stream dissolved CO2 are reported. A Manuscript using these data sets has been submitted to Biogeosciences</p>
Data from: Soil microbial biomass increases along elevational gradients in the tropics and sub-tropics but not elsewhere
Abstract Aim: Our aim is to use elevational gradients to quantify the relationship between temperature and ecosystem functioning. Ecosystem functions such as decomposition, nutrient cycling and carbon storage are linked with the amount of microbial biomass in the soil. Previous studies have shown variable relationships between elevation and soil microbial biomass (SMB). Understanding the biological mechanisms linking SMB with elevational gradients will shed light on the environmental impacts of global warming. Location: Global. Time period: 2002-2018. Major taxa studied: Soil microbes. Method: We performed a global meta-analysis of the relationships between SMB and elevation. Data were collected from 59 studies of 73 elevational transects from around the world. Results: We found no consistent global relationship between SMB and elevation. SMB increased significantly with elevation in the tropics and sub-tropics, but not in other climate zones. However, we found consistent positive relationships between SMB, soil organic carbon and total nitrogen concentrations. Main conclusions: Our results suggest that global warming will impact tropical and sub-tropical ecosystems more severely than colder regions. Tropical ecosystems, already at risk from species extinctions, will likely experience declines in SMB as the climate warms, resulting in losses of fundamental ecosystem functions such as nutrient cycling and carbon storage.
Data from: Canopy soil greenhouse gas dynamics in response to indirect fertilization across an elevation gradient of tropical montane forests
Canopy soils can significantly contribute to aboveground labile biomass, especially in tropical montane forests. Whether they also contribute to the exchange of greenhouse gases is unknown. To examine the importance of canopy soils to tropical forest-soil greenhouse gas exchange, we quantified gas fluxes from canopy soil cores along an elevation gradient with 4 yr of nutrient addition to the forest floor. Canopy soil contributed 5–12 percent of combined (canopy + forest floor) soil CO2 emissions but CH4 and N2O fluxes were low. At 2000 m, phosphorus decreased CO2 emissions (>40%) and nitrogen slightly increased CH4 uptake and N2O emissions. Our results show that canopy soils may contribute significantly to combined soil greenhouse gas fluxes in montane regions with high accumulations of canopy soil. We also show that changes in fluxes could occur with chronic nutrient deposition.
Data from: Combined effects of seed and soil quality drive seedling performance of a late-successional canopy tree in a tropical forest
Habitat loss and fragmentation affect the structure and functioning of forested ecosystems worldwide, yet we lack an understanding of how species respond to environmental changes. Here, we examined reproductive success and seedling performance of Poulsenia armata (Moraceae) in continuous and fragmented forests of Los Tuxtlas, southern Mexico. We further investigated how maternal habitat and soil conditions manifested in the seedling stage. We determined seed quality and seedling performance by combining isotopic analyses in seed quality with field observations of P. armata fruit production and a common--garden experiment. Soil conditions in forest fragments negatively impacted P. armata reproductive success. Trees of P. armata in forest fragments were smaller in size and produced fewer fruits and smaller seeds with lower quality compared with trees from the continuous forest. The combined effects of maternal habitat and soil conditions determined seedling survival and growth of this tropical tree. Notably, seedlings had restricted plasticity for biomass allocation to roots, limiting the capacity of fragmented populations to compensate for the initial low N content in seeds. Trees in forest fragments at Los Tuxtlas produced offspring competitively inferior and potentially less resilient than counterparts in continuous forest, jeopardizing future persistence of this late-successional tree species.
Data from: Soil nutrients and dispersal limitation shape compositional variation in secondary tropical forests across multiple scales
1. Soil resource partitioning and dispersal limitation have been shown to shape the tree community structure of mature tropical forests, but are poorly studied in the context of forest succession. We examined the relative contributions of both ecological processes to the variation in the species composition of young tropical secondary forests at different spatial scales, and if the relative importance of these two ecological processes changed during succession. At the species level, we examined if the association between species abundances and soil fertility differed between early and late successional species and/or changed over the course of succession. 2. We used vegetation and soil data from 47 secondary forest sites with two plots each in a tropical agricultural landscape. A distance-based redundancy analysis and variation partition were employed to examine the relative importance of spatial distance (proxy for dispersal limitation) and heterogeneity in soil nutrients (proxy for soil nutrient partitioning) at the landscape scale, and a linear regression to test their effects at the local scale. We examined interspecific variation in species' responses to successional age and soil nutrients with a joint species distribution model. 3. Dispersal limitation and soil niche partitioning drove considerable variation in the composition of plant communities at local and landscape scales. The relative contribution of these two ecological processes changed with scale (local versus landscape), topography (lower slope versus upper slope plots). At the species level, significant abundance-soil fertility associations were mostly positive. Most species became less responsive to soil nutrients over the first few decades of tropical forest succession, probably because light became the main limiting resource in older forests. 4. Synthesis. Our key finding is that spatial heterogeneity in soil resources and spatial distance jointly drive compositional variation within and across early successional forests. Our results highlight that a network of forest fragments enhances the resilience of ecological processes and the potential of secondary forests to restore and preserve biodiversity in human-modified landscapes. To advance our understanding of ecological succession, we need to move beyond single-factor and local-scale studies and examine the effects of multiple variables on succession at multiple spatial scales.
Data from: Scale-dependent variation in nitrogen cycling and soil fungal communities along gradients of forest composition and age in regenerating tropical dry forests
Rates of ecosystem nitrogen (N) cycling may be mediated by the presence of ectomycorrhizal fungi, which compete directly with free‐living microbes for N. In the regenerating tropical dry forests of Central America, the distribution of ectomycorrhizal trees is affected by succession and soil parent material, both of which may exert independent influence over soil N fluxes. In order to quantify these interacting controls, we used a scale‐explicit sampling strategy to examine soil N cycling at scales ranging from the microsite to ecosystem level. We measured fungal community composition, total and inorganic N pools, gross proteolytic rate, net N mineralization and microbial extracellular enzyme activity at multiple locations within 18 permanent plots that span dramatic gradients of soil N concentration, stand age and forest composition. The ratio of inorganic to organic N cycling was correlated with variation in fungal community structure, consistent with a strong influence of ectomycorrhiza on ecosystem‐scale N cycling. However, on average, > 61% of the variation in soil biogeochemistry occurred within plots, and the effects of forest composition were mediated by this local‐scale heterogeneity in total soil N concentrations. These cross‐scale interactions demonstrate the importance of a spatially explicit approach towards an understanding of controls on element cycling.
Data from: Linking size spectrum, energy flux and trophic multifunctionality in soil food webs of tropical land-use systems
1. Many ecosystem functions depend on the structure of food webs, which heavily relies on the body size spectrum of the community. Despite that, little is known on how the size spectrum of soil animals responds to agricultural practices in tropical land-use systems and how these responses affect ecosystem functioning. 2. We studied land-use induced changes in belowground communities in tropical lowland ecosystems in Sumatra (Jambi province, Indonesia), a hotspot of tropical rainforest conversion to rubber and oil palm plantations. The study included ca. 30,000 measured individuals from 33 high-order taxa of meso- and macrofauna spanning eight orders of magnitude in body mass. Using individual body masses we calculated the metabolism of trophic guilds and used food-web models to calculate energy fluxes and infer ecosystem functions, such as decomposition, herbivory, primary and intraguild predation. 3. Land-use change was associated with reduced abundance and taxonomic diversity of soil invertebrates, but strong increase in total biomass and moderate changes in total energy flux. These changes were due to increased biomass of large-sized decomposers in soil, in particular earthworms, with their share in community metabolism increasing from 11% in rainforest to 59-76% in jungle rubber, and rubber and oil palm plantations. Decomposition, i.e. the energy flux to decomposers, stayed unchanged, but herbivory, primary and intraguild predation decreased by an order of magnitude in plantation systems. Intraguild predation was very important, being responsible for 38% of the energy flux in rainforest according to our model. 4. Conversion of rainforest into monoculture plantations is associated by an uneven loss of size classes and trophic levels of soil invertebrates resulting in sequestration of energy in large-sized primary consumers and restricted flux of energy to higher trophic levels. Pronounced differences between rainforest and jungle rubber reflect sensitivity of rainforest soil animal communities to moderate land-use changes. Soil communities in plantation systems sustained high total energy flux despite reduced biodiversity. The high energy flux into large decomposers but low energy fluxes to other trophic guilds suggests that trophic multifunctionality of belowground communities is compromised in plantation systems.
Data from: Short-term precipitation exclusion alters microbial responses to soil moisture in a wet tropical forest
Many wet tropical forests, which contain a quarter of global terrestrial biomass carbon stocks, will experience changes in precipitation regime over the next century. Soil microbial responses to altered rainfall are likely to be an important feedback on ecosystem carbon cycling, but the ecological mechanisms underpinning these responses are poorly understood. We examined how reduced rainfall affect- ed soil microbial abundance, activity, and community compo- sition using a 6-month precipitation exclusion experiment at La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica. Thereafter, we ad- dressed the persistent effects of field moisture treatments by exposing soils to a controlled soil moisture gradient in the lab for 4 weeks. In the field, compositional and functional re- sponses to reduced rainfall were dependent on initial condi- tions, consistent with a large degree of spatial heterogeneity in tropical forests. However, the precipitation manipulation sig- nificantly altered microbial functional responses to soil mois- ture. Communities with prior drought exposure exhibited higher respiration rates per unit microbial biomass under all conditions and respired significantly more CO2 than control soils at low soil moisture. These functional patterns suggest that changes in microbial physiology may drive positive feed- backs to rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations if wet tropical forests experience longer or more intense dry seasons in the future.
Data from: Unraveling the mechanisms underlying pulse dynamics of soil respiration in tropical dry forests
Tropical dry forests are already undergoing changes in the quantity and timing of rainfall, but there is great uncertainty over how these shifts will affect belowground carbon (C) cycling. While it has long been known that dry soils quickly release carbon dioxide (CO2) upon rewetting, the mechanisms underlying the so-called 'Birch effect' are still debated. Here, we quantified soil respiration pulses and their biotic predictors in response to simulated precipitation events in a regenerating tropical dry forest in Costa Rica. We also simulated the observed rewetting CO2 pulses with two soil carbon models: a conventional model assuming first-order decay rates of soil organic matter, and an enzyme- catalyzed model with Michaelis–Menten kinetics. We found that rewetting of dry soils produced an immediate and dramatic pulse of CO2, accompanied by rapid immobilization of nitrogen into the microbial biomass. However, the magnitude of the rewetting CO2 pulse was highly variable at fine spatial scales, and was well correlated with the size of the dissolved organic C pool prior to rewetting. Both the enzyme-catalyzed and conventional models were able to reproduce the Birch effect when respiration was coupled directly to microbial C uptake, although models differed in their ability to yield realistic estimates of SOC and microbial biomass pool sizes and dynamics. Our results suggest that changes in the timing and intensity of rainfall events in tropical dry forests will exert strong influence on ecosystem C balance by affecting the dynamics of microbial biomass growth.
Data from: Nutrient scarcity strengthens soil fauna control over leaf litter decomposition in tropical rainforests
Soil fauna is a key control of the decomposition rate of leaf litter, yet its interactions with litter quality and the soil environment remain elusive. We conducted a litter decomposition experiment across different topographic levels within the landscape replicated in two rainforest sites providing natural gradients in soil fertility to test the hypothesis that low nutrient availability in litter and soil increases the strength of fauna control over litter decomposition. We crossed these data with a large dataset of 44 variables characterizing the biotic and abiotic microenvironment of each sampling point and found that microbe-driven Carbon (C) and Nitrogen (N) losses from leaf litter were 10.1 and 17.9 % lower, respectively, in the nutrient-poorest site but this among-site difference was equalized when meso- and macrofauna had access to the litterbags. Further, on average soil fauna enhanced the rate of litter decomposition by 22.6%, and this contribution consistently increased as nutrient availability in the microenvironment declined. Our results indicate that nutrient scarcity increases the importance of soil fauna on C and N cycling in tropical rainforests. Further, soil fauna is able to equalize differences in microbial decomposition potential thus buffering to a remarkable extent nutrient shortages at an ecosystem level.
Data from: Does soil moisture availability explain liana seedling distribution across a tropical rainfall gradient?
Liana density tends to increase with decreasing rainfall and increasing seasonality. However, the pattern of liana distribution may be due to differences in soil water retention capacity, not rainfall and seasonality per se. We tested the effect of rainfall and soil substrate with respect to the distribution of liana seedlings in six sites across a rainfall gradient from the wet Atlantic to the dry Pacific in central Panama. Soils were either limestone, with low water-holding capacity, or laterite, with higher water-holding capacity. We sampled liana seedlings at each site using three 1 × 100 m transect. We found that relative liana seedling density was higher on limestone soils compared to laterite soils regardless of the amount of rainfall. Furthermore, liana community composition on limestone soils was more similar to dry forest sites than to adjacent wet and moist forest sites. Liana seedling species diversity relative to trees was significantly higher in a low-fertility dry forest site compared to a high-fertility forest, but did not differ from the other sites. Thus, liana seedling density and community structure may be driven more by soil type and thus by soil moisture availability than strictly by mean annual rainfall and the seasonality of rainfall.
Data from: Growth responses to soil water potential indirectly shape local species distributions of tropical forest seedlings
1. Local tree species distributions in tropical forests correlate strongly with soil water availability. However, it is unclear how species distributions are shaped by demographic responses to soil water availability. Specifically, it remains unknown how growth affects species distributions along water availability gradients relative to mortality. 2. We quantified spatial variation in dry season soil water potential (SWP) in the moist tropical forest on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, and used a hierarchical Bayesian approach to evaluate relationships between demographic responses of naturally regenerating seedlings to SWP (relative growth rates and first-year mortality) and species distributions along the SWP gradient for 62 species. We also tested whether species that were more abundant at the wet or dry end of the gradient performed better (1) at their 'home end' of the gradient ('best at home' hypothesis) and (2) 'at home' compared to co-occurring species ('home advantage' hypothesis). 3. Four and five species responded significantly to SWP in terms of growth or mortality, respectively. Growth (but not mortality) responses were positively related to species distributions along the SWP gradient; species with a more positive (negative) growth response to SWP were more abundant at higher (lower) SWP, i.e. at wetter (drier) sites. In addition, wet distributed species grew faster on the wet end of the SWP gradient than on the dry end ('best at home') and grew faster on the wet end than dry distributed species ('home advantage'). Mortality rates declined with seedling size for all species. Thus, seedling growth responses to SWP indirectly shaped local species distributions by influencing seedling size and thereby mortality risk. 4. Synthesis. By demonstrating how growth responses to spatial variation in soil water availability affect species distributions, we identified a demographic process underlying niche differentiation on hydrological gradients in tropical forests. Recognizing the role of these growth responses in shaping species distributions should improve understanding of tropical forest composition and diversity along rainfall gradients and with climate change.
Data from: Evidence for ecological divergence across a mosaic of soil types in an Amazonian tropical tree: Protium subserratum (Burseraceae)
Soil gradients are known to be an important driver of divergent natural selection in plant populations. Neotropical trees have the highest diversity on earth and it is not uncommon to find soil specialist congeners distributed parapatrically. Nevertheless very little is known about the role that edaphic heterogeneity plays in the origin and maintenance of tropical tree diversity. We predict that the mosaic of different soils in the lowland Amazon rainforest play a major role in generating and maintaining genetic variation in tropical tree populations through ecological divergence. This study examines genetic and morphological differentiation in the tropical tree Protium subserratum populations growing on the mosaic of white-sand, brown-sand and clay soil types distributed parapatrically throughout the western Amazon basin. We use nuclear microsatellites and vegetative characters to answer four major questions: (1) Are populations phenotypically and genetically differentiated across all three habitat types? (2) Can we detect a signature of natural selection over drift divergence among populations on different soil types? (3) What is the extent of hybridization and introgression across habitat types? (4) What is the relative importance of spatial distance and soil type in structuring P. subserratum tree populations and influencing migration rates among populations? We found significant morphological variation in populations across the three soil types. Higher levels of genetic differentiation and lower levels of gene flow were observed between adjacent populations found on different soil types than between geographically distant populations on the same soil type. Comparisons of phenotypic and neutral genetic variation among soil specialist populations suggest a role for natural selection in population divergence and a small number of hybrid individuals were detected between soil ecotypes showing that gene flow among populations may be occurring at a low frequency. Our results suggest that edaphic specialization in P. subserratum populations has occurred across multiple soil boundaries. While we cannot discern which factors caused initial divergence our results do suggest that natural selection is plays an important role in maintaining the integrity of populations across ecological boundaries and that edaphic specialization may be a general mechanism that promotes and maintains Amazonian tree diversity.
Data for the publication "Low sensitivity of three terrestrial biosphere models to soil texture over the South-American tropics"
<p>Code and data for the aforementionned publication </p>
Tropical montane forest in South Asia: Composition, structure and dieback in relation to soils and topography
<p>We evaluated the composition, structure and dieback of a montane forest in relation to soils and physiography of an important biogeographic region that has been sparsely studied. Our objectives were to: 1. Describe the forest composition and structure; 2. Assess the current extent of dieback; and 3. Relate tree composition, structure, and dieback proneness to edaphic and physiographic measures. We enumerated all live and dead standing plants ≥ 3 cm diameter at breast height (DBH), in thirty 20×15 m<sup>2</sup> over story plots. We measured all regeneration <u><</u> 1m height in subplots, sampled soils and measures of physiography, and visually rated the proportion of crown die-back, and recorded standing dead trees.</p>
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
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The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.