Soil fertility controls on tropical forest productivity and mortality: synthesis and roadmap

Tropical forests are highly diverse and productive ecosystems and store nearly 60% of vegetation biomass. Across the tropics, forests span large gradients of soil fertility, from vast regions situated on highly weathered, ancient geological formations to others on young, nutrient-rich landscapes. Tropical forest productivity, mortality, and biomass all vary systematically across these gradients in soil fertility. Aboveground forest productivity tends to increase with higher soil fertility, while counterintuitively, aboveground biomass does not increase proportionally. This disconnect is likely due to coinciding increases in mortality with higher soil fertility. However, we know relatively little about the mechanisms underlying how soil fertility regulates productivity or mortality - two critical determinants of forest biomass - and even less about how these relationships will shape tropical forest responses to global change. Here, we present a mechanistic framework for understanding how soil fertility affects productivity through photosynthesis, carbon allocation, and carbon-use efficiency; how it modulates mortality via direct and indirect interactions with various drivers of mortality; and how global change may alter these relationships. Based on this synthesis, we outline a roadmap to advance our understanding of tropical forests and improve predictions of their responses to global change.

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Publication Details

Journal
New Phytologist
Published
2026-06-29
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.71367
Primary Topic
Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

Soil fertility controls on tropical forest productivity and mortality: synthesis and roadmap

Marijn Bauters, Helene C. Muller‐Landau, Jane M. Lucas, Laura Toro et al.
New Phytologist
Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
article

Soil fertility controls on tropical forest productivity and mortality: synthesis and roadmap

Marijn Bauters, Helene C. Muller‐Landau, Jane M. Lucas, Laura Toro, Mareli Sánchez‐Julia, Mark S. Ashton, Adriane Esquivel‐Muelbert, Sebastian Döetterl, Katrin Fleischer, Xiangtao Xu, Jennifer A. Holm, David F. R. P. Burslem, Michelle Y. Wong, José A. Medina‐Vega, Claire Fortunel, Nohemi Huanca Nuñez, Demétrius Lira‐Martins, Sarah A. Batterman, James W. Dalling, K. C. Cushman, Elsa M. Ordway, Guopeng Liang, S. Joseph Wright‬, Evan M. Gora, Gabriela Zuquim, Jessica Needham, Moses B. Libalah
article en

Abstract

Tropical forests are highly diverse and productive ecosystems and store nearly 60% of vegetation biomass. Across the tropics, forests span large gradients of soil fertility, from vast regions situated on highly weathered, ancient geological formations to others on young, nutrient-rich landscapes. Tropical forest productivity, mortality, and biomass all vary systematically across these gradients in soil fertility. Aboveground forest productivity tends to increase with higher soil fertility, while counterintuitively, aboveground biomass does not increase proportionally. This disconnect is likely due to coinciding increases in mortality with higher soil fertility. However, we know relatively little about the mechanisms underlying how soil fertility regulates productivity or mortality - two critical determinants of forest biomass - and even less about how these relationships will shape tropical forest responses to global change. Here, we present a mechanistic framework for understanding how soil fertility affects productivity through photosynthesis, carbon allocation, and carbon-use efficiency; how it modulates mortality via direct and indirect interactions with various drivers of mortality; and how global change may alter these relationships. Based on this synthesis, we outline a roadmap to advance our understanding of tropical forests and improve predictions of their responses to global change.

New Phytologist
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (PA), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), University of Leeds (GB), Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (FR), Université de Yaoundé I (CM), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US), University of Turku (FI), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US), University of California, Los Angeles (US), Turku University of Applied Sciences (FI), University of Aberdeen (GB), Cornell University (US), University of Cambridge (GB), Missouri Botanical Garden (US), Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies (US), Ghent University (BE), Yale University (US), ETH Zurich (CH), Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (FR), Sustainability Institute (ZA), Carnegie Department of Plant Biology (US), Advanced MRI Technologies (United States) (US), ForestGEO (US), CICERO Center for International Climate Research (NO), UMR Botanique et Modélisation de l’Architecture des Plantes et des végétations (FR), CSC - IT Center for Science (Finland) (FI), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (FR), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL)
Openalex Percentile: Top 8%
Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
DOISourceOpenAlex
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