The Science

Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the Smithsonian Institution conducted an extensive study of predictors of tropical soil carbon stocks to 1 m depth at 48 sites in Panama, including measurements of soil characteristics, plant biomass, and climate. The study revealed a nearly three-fold change in soil carbon stocks across five soil orders, with soil characteristics like fine root biomass, clay content, and nutrient base cations the strongest predictors of soil carbon stocks.

The Impact

Tropical forests are the most carbon rich ecosystems on Earth, containing 25% to 40% of global terrestrial carbon stocks. Quantification of aboveground biomass in tropical forests has improved recently, but soil carbon dynamics remains one of the largest sources of uncertainty in Earth system models. Including soil base cations in carbon cycle models, and thus emphasizing mechanistic links among nutrients, root biomass, and soil carbon stocks, will improve prediction of climate-soil feedbacks in tropical forests.

Summary

Overall, soil characteristics were the best predictors of soil carbon stocks, with no relationship to aboveground plant biomass or litterfall. The best fit model for the study’s data suggested that available base cations provide an indirect control over tropical soil carbon stocks via a negative relationship with fine-root biomass. Soil clay content and rainfall also emerged as significant predictors of soil carbon. In addition to the nearly three-fold change in soil carbon stocks, the sites used here covered five soil orders, over 25 geological formations, a two-fold range in rainfall, a 20-fold range in base cations, and a 100-fold range in available phosphorus. Thus, although the data come from a relatively restricted geographic region, the diversity of environmental conditions means that the results are likely to be broadly applicable over much larger geographical ranges.

Principal Investigator

Daniela Cusack
University of California, Los Angeles
dcusack@geog.ucla.edu

Program Manager

Daniel Stover
U.S. Department of Energy, Biological and Environmental Research (SC-33)
Environmental System Science
daniel.stover@science.doe.gov

Funding

Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) GSS Grant #BCS-1437591 and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science Early Career Research Program Grant DE-SC0015898 to D. F. Cusack, and UK Research and Innovation’s National Environment Research Council (NERC) Grant NE/J011169/1 to O. T. Lewis.

Related Links

• Data on location, rainfall, geology, soil, litterfall, aboveground and root biomass in Panama

References