1. Patterns of nitrogen‐fixing tree abundance in forests across Asia and America
- Author
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Renato Valencia, Duncan N. L. Menge, Guochun Shen, I. A. U. Nimal Gunatilleke, Keith Clay, Anuttara Nathalang, Rebecca Ostertag, Xiankun Li, Patrick A. Jansen, Mauricio Alvarez, Pagi S. Toko, Ana Andrade, Keping Ma, Stephen P. Hubbell, Christine Fletcher, Norm Bourg, Tomáš Vrška, Geoffrey G. Parker, Yide Li, Bin Wang, Li Zhu, Richard P. Phillips, Michael D. Morecroft, Luxiang Lin, Sean M. McMahon, João Batista da Silva, Stuart J. Davies, David Allen, Lee Sing Kong, William J. McShea, Weiguo Sang, Jan den Ouden, Sean C. Thomas, Sheng-Hsin Su, Billy C.H. Hau, Robert W. Howe, Jonathan Myers, Michael Drescher, James A. Lutz, Han Xu, Ankur Shringi, Daniel J. Johnson, Chang-Fu Hsieh, Min Cao, C. V. Savitri Gunatilleke, Alberto Vicentini, Lawren Sack, H. S. Suresh, Xihua Wang, Vojtech Novotny, Christian P. Giardina, George D. Weiblen, H. S. Dattaraja, Sandra L. Yap, Amy Wolf, Raman Sukumar, Tak Fung, Sylvester Tan, Nathalie Butt, Richard Condit, Warren Y. Brockelman, Sarayudh Bunyavejchewin, Yiching Lin, Yadvinder Malhi, Susan Cordell, I-Fang Sun, Faith Inman-Narahari, Shirong Liu, Fangliang He, Kassim Abd Rahman, Wei-Chun Chao, Jessica Shue, Martha Isabel Vallejo, Alexandre Adalardo de Oliveira, Kamariah Abu Salim, Jiangshan Lai, Ryan A. Chisholm, Chen-Chia Ku, Wirong Chanthorn, David A. Orwig, Andrew J. Larson, Perry S. Ong, Kamil Král, Xiangcheng Mi, and Shawn K. Y. Lum
- Subjects
0106 biological sciences ,Plant Science ,010603 evolutionary biology ,01 natural sciences ,Latitude ,Basal area ,forest ,Abundance (ecology) ,Bosecologie en Bosbeheer ,Ecosystem ,Precipitation ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics ,nutrient limitation ,Ecology ,Tropics ,legume ,PE&RC ,Smithsonian ForestGEO ,Forest Ecology and Forest Management ,symbiosis ,Fixation (population genetics) ,Geography ,nitrogen fixation ,Wildlife Ecology and Conservation ,Nitrogen fixation ,010606 plant biology & botany - Abstract
Symbiotic nitrogen (N)-fixing trees can provide large quantities of new N to ecosystems, but only if they are sufficiently abundant. The overall abundance and latitudinal abundance distributions of N-fixing trees are well characterised in the Americas, but less well outside the Americas. Here, we characterised the abundance of N-fixing trees in a network of forest plots spanning five continents, ~5,000 tree species and ~4 million trees. The majority of the plots (86%) were in America or Asia. In addition, we examined whether the observed pattern of abundance of N-fixing trees was correlated with mean annual temperature and precipitation. Outside the tropics, N-fixing trees were consistently rare in the forest plots we examined. Within the tropics, N-fixing trees were abundant in American but not Asian forest plots (~7% versus ~1% of basal area and stems). This disparity was not explained by mean annual temperature or precipitation. Our finding of low N-fixing tree abundance in the Asian tropics casts some doubt on recent high estimates of N fixation rates in this region, which do not account for disparities in N-fixing tree abundance between the Asian and American tropics. Synthesis. Inputs of nitrogen to forests depend on symbiotic nitrogen fixation, which is constrained by the abundance of N-fixing trees. By analysing a large dataset of ~4 million trees, we found that N-fixing trees were consistently rare in the Asian tropics as well as across higher latitudes in Asia, America and Europe. The rarity of N-fixing trees in the Asian tropics compared with the American tropics might stem from lower intrinsic N limitation in Asian tropical forests, although direct support for any mechanism is lacking. The paucity of N-fixing trees throughout Asian forests suggests that N inputs to the Asian tropics might be lower than previously thought.
- Published
- 2019
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