High aboveground carbon stock of African tropical montane forests.

Tropical forests store 40-50 per cent of terrestrial vegetation carbon1. However, spatial variations in aboveground live tree biomass carbon (AGC) stocks remain poorly understood, in particular in tropical montane forests2. Owing to climatic and soil changes with increasing elevation3, AGC stocks are lower in tropical montane forests compared with lowland forests2. Here we assemble and analyse a dataset of structurally intact old-growth forests (AfriMont) spanning 44 montane sites in 12 African countries. We find that montane sites in the AfriMont plot network have a mean AGC stock of 149.4 megagrams of carbon per hectare (95% confidence interval 137.1-164.2), which is comparable to lowland forests in the African Tropical Rainforest Observation Network4 and about 70 per cent and 32 per cent higher than averages from plot networks in montane2,5,6 and lowland7 forests in the Neotropics, respectively. Notably, our results are two-thirds higher than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change default values for these forests in Africa8. We find that the low stem density and high abundance of large trees of African lowland forests4 is mirrored in the montane forests sampled. This carbon store is endangered: we estimate that 0.8 million hectares of old-growth African montane forest have been lost since 2000. We provide country-specific montane forest AGC stock estimates modelled from our plot network to help to guide forest conservation and reforestation interventions. Our findings highlight the need for conserving these biodiverse9,10 and carbon-rich ecosystems.

New tree height allometries derived from terrestrial laser scanning reveal substantial discrepancies with forest inventory methods in tropical rainforests.

Tree allometric models, essential for monitoring and predicting terrestrial carbon stocks, are traditionally built on global databases with forest inventory measurements of stem diameter (D) and tree height (H). However, these databases often combine H measurements obtained through various measurement methods, each with distinct error patterns, affecting the resulting H:D allometries. In recent decades, terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) has emerged as a widely accepted method for accurate, non-destructive tree structural measurements. This study used TLS data to evaluate the prediction accuracy of forest inventory-based H:D allometries and to develop more accurate pantropical allometries. We considered 19 tropical rainforest plots across four continents. Eleven plots had forest inventory and RIEGL VZ-400(i) TLS-based D and H data, allowing accuracy assessment of local forest inventory-based H:D allometries. Additionally, TLS-based data from 1951 trees from all 19 plots were used to create new pantropical H:D allometries for tropical rainforests. Our findings reveal that in most plots, forest inventory-based H:D allometries underestimated H compared with TLS-based allometries. For 30-metre-tall trees, these underestimations varied from -1.6 m (-5.3%) to -7.5 m (-25.4%). In the Malaysian plot with trees reaching up to 77 m in height, the underestimation was as much as -31.7 m (-41.3%). We propose a TLS-based pantropical H:D allometry, incorporating maximum climatological water deficit for site effects, with a mean uncertainty of 19.1% and a mean bias of -4.8%. While the mean uncertainty is roughly 2.3% greater than that of the Chave2014 model, this model demonstrates more consistent uncertainties across tree size and delivers less biased estimates of H (with a reduction of 8.23%). In summary, recognizing the errors in H measurements from forest inventory methods is vital, as they can propagate into the allometries they inform. This study underscores the potential of TLS for accurate H and D measurements in tropical rainforests, essential for refining tree allometries.

Atmospheric phosphorus deposition amplifies carbon sinks in simulations of a tropical forest in Central Africa.

Spatial redistribution of nutrients by atmospheric transport and deposition could theoretically act as a continental-scale mechanism which counteracts declines in soil fertility caused by nutrient lock-up in accumulating biomass in tropical forests in Central Africa. However, to what extent it affects carbon sinks in forests remains elusive. Here we use a terrestrial biosphere model to quantify the impact of changes in atmospheric nitrogen and phosphorus deposition on plant nutrition and biomass carbon sink at a typical lowland forest site in Central Africa. We find that the increase in nutrient deposition since the 1980s could have contributed to the carbon sink over the past four decades up to an extent which is similar to that from the combined effects of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide and climate change. Furthermore, we find that the modelled carbon sink responds to changes in phosphorus deposition, but less so to nitrogen deposition. The pronounced response of ecosystem productivity to changes in nutrient deposition illustrates a potential mechanism that could control carbon sinks in Central Africa. Monitoring the quantity and quality of nutrient deposition is needed in this region, given the changes in nutrient deposition due to human land use.

Soil geochemistry - and not topography - as a major driver of carbon allocation, stocks, and dynamics in forests and soils of African tropical montane ecosystems.

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.

Global maps and factors driving forest foliar elemental composition: the importance of evolutionary history.

Consistent information on the current elemental composition of vegetation at global scale and the variables that determine it is lacking. To fill this gap, we gathered a total of 30 912 georeferenced records on woody plants foliar concentrations of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) from published databases, and produced global maps of foliar N, P and K concentrations for woody plants using neural networks at a resolution of 1 km2 . We used data for climate, atmospheric deposition, soil and morphoclimatic groups to train the neural networks. Foliar N, P and K do not follow clear global latitudinal patterns but are consistent with the hypothesis of soil substrate age. We additionally built generalized linear mixed models to investigate the evolutionary history effect together with the effects of environmental effects. In this comparison, evolutionary history effects explained most of the variability in all cases (mostly > 60%). These results emphasize the determinant role of evolutionary history in foliar elemental composition, which should be incorporated in upcoming dynamic global vegetation models.

Global maps of soil temperature.

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km2 resolution for 0-5 and 5-15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km2 pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (-0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications.

High photosynthetic capacity of Sahelian C3 and C4 plants.

The semi-arid ecosystems of the African Sahel play an important role in the global carbon cycle and are among the most sensitive ecosystems to future environmental pressures. Still, basic data of photosynthetic characteristics of Sahelian vegetation are very limited, preventing us to properly understand these ecosystems and to project their response to future global changes. Here, we aim to study and quantify key leaf traits, including photosynthetic parameters and leaf nutrients (Nleaf and Pleaf), of common C3 and C4 Sahelian plants (trees, lianas, and grasses) at the Dahra field site (Senegal). Dahra is a reference site for grazed semi-arid Sahelian savannah ecosystems in carbon cycle studies. Within the studied species, we found that photosynthetic parameters varied considerably between functional types. We also found significant relationships between and within photosynthetic parameters and leaf traits which mostly differed in their slopes from C3 to C4 plants. In agreement with the leaf economic spectrum, strong relationships (R2 = 0.71) were found between SLA and Nleaf whereby C3 and C4 plants showed very similar relationships. By comparing our data to a global dataset of plant traits, we show that measured Sahelian plants exhibit higher photosynthetic capacity (Asat) compared to the non-Sahelian vegetation, with values that are on average a fourfold of the global average. Moreover, Sahelian C3 plants showed photosynthetic nutrient use efficiencies that were on average roughly twice as high as global averages. We interpreted these results as the potential adaptation of Sahelian plants to short growing season lengths via an efficient nutrient allocation to optimize photosynthesis during this period. Our study provides robust estimates of key functional traits, but also traits relationships that will help to calibrate and validate vegetation models over this data-poor region.

High fire-derived nitrogen deposition on central African forests.

Atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition is an important determinant of N availability for natural ecosystems worldwide. Increased anthropogenic N deposition shifts the stoichiometric equilibrium of ecosystems, with direct and indirect impacts on ecosystem functioning and biogeochemical cycles. Current simulation data suggest that remote tropical forests still receive low atmospheric N deposition due to a lack of proximate industry, low rates of fossil fuel combustion, and absence of intensive agriculture. We present field-based N deposition data for forests of the central Congo Basin, and use ultrahigh-resolution mass spectrometry to characterize the organic N fraction. Additionally, we use satellite data and modeling for atmospheric N source apportionment. Our results indicate that these forests receive 18.2 kg N hectare-1 years-1 as wet deposition, with dry deposition via canopy interception adding considerably to this flux. We also show that roughly half of the N deposition is organic, which is often ignored in N deposition measurements and simulations. The source of atmospheric N is predominantly derived from intensive seasonal burning of biomass on the continent. This high N deposition has important implications for the ecology of the Congo Basin and for global biogeochemical cycles more broadly.

Century-long apparent decrease in intrinsic water-use efficiency with no evidence of progressive nutrient limitation in African tropical forests.

Forests exhibit leaf- and ecosystem-level responses to environmental changes. Specifically, rising carbon dioxide (CO2 ) levels over the past century are expected to have increased the intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE) of tropical trees while the ecosystem is gradually pushed into progressive nutrient limitation. Due to the long-term character of these changes, however, observational datasets to validate both paradigms are limited in space and time. In this study, we used a unique herbarium record to go back nearly a century and show that despite the rise in CO2 concentrations, iWUE has decreased in central African tropical trees in the Congo Basin. Although we find evidence that points to leaf-level adaptation to increasing CO2 -that is, increasing photosynthesis-related nutrients and decreasing maximum stomatal conductance, a decrease in leaf δ13 C clearly indicates a decreasing iWUE over time. Additionally, the stoichiometric carbon to nitrogen and nitrogen to phosphorus ratios in the leaves show no sign of progressive nutrient limitation as they have remained constant since 1938, which suggests that nutrients have not increasingly limited productivity in this biome. Altogether, the data suggest that other environmental factors, such as increasing temperature, might have negatively affected net photosynthesis and consequently downregulated the iWUE. Results from this study reveal that the second largest tropical forest on Earth has responded differently to recent environmental changes than expected, highlighting the need for further on-ground monitoring in the Congo Basin.

TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access.

Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives.

Historical tree phenology data reveal the seasonal rhythms of the Congo Basin rainforest.

Tropical forest phenology directly affects regional carbon cycles, but the relation between species-specific and whole-canopy phenology remains largely uncharacterized. We present a unique analysis of historical tropical tree phenology collected in the central Congo Basin, before large-scale impacts of human-induced climate change. Ground-based long-term (1937-1956) phenological observations of 140 tropical tree species are recovered, species-specific phenological patterns analyzed and related to historical meteorological records, and scaled to characterize stand-level canopy dynamics. High phenological variability within and across species and in climate-phenology relationships is observed. The onset of leaf phenophases in deciduous species was triggered by drought and light availability for a subset of species and showed a species-specific decoupling in time along a bi-modal seasonality. The majority of the species remain evergreen, although central African forests experience relatively low rainfall. Annually a maximum of 1.5% of the canopy is in leaf senescence or leaf turnover, with overall phenological variability dominated by a few deciduous species, while substantial variability is attributed to asynchronous events of large and/or abundant trees. Our results underscore the importance of accounting for constituent signals in canopy-wide scaling and the interpretation of remotely sensed phenology signals.

Increasing calcium scarcity along Afrotropical forest succession.

Secondary forests constitute an increasingly important component of tropical forests worldwide. Although cycling of essential nutrients affects recovery trajectories of secondary forests, the effect of nutrient limitation on forest regrowth is poorly constrained. Here we use three lines of evidence from secondary forest succession sequences in central Africa to identify potential nutrient limitation in regrowing forests. First, we show that atmospheric phosphorus supply exceeds demand along forest succession, whereas forests rely on soil stocks to meet their base cation demands. Second, soil nutrient metrics indicate that available phosphorus increases along the succession, whereas available cations decrease. Finally, fine root, foliar and litter stoichiometry show that tissue calcium concentrations decline relative to those of nitrogen and phosphorus during succession. Taken together, these observations suggest that calcium becomes an increasingly scarce resource in central African forests during secondary succession. Furthermore, ecosystem calcium storage shifts from soil to woody biomass over succession, making it a vulnerable nutrient in the wake of land-use change scenarios that involve woody biomass export. Our results thus call for a broadened focus on elements other than nitrogen and phosphorus regarding tropical forest biogeochemical cycles and identify calcium as a scarce and potentially limiting nutrient in an increasingly disturbed and dynamic tropical forest landscape.

Low N2O and variable CH4 fluxes from tropical forest soils of the Congo Basin.

Globally, tropical forests are assumed to be an important source of atmospheric nitrous oxide (N2O) and sink for methane (CH4). Yet, although the Congo Basin comprises the second largest tropical forest and is considered the most pristine large basin left on Earth, in situ N2O and CH4 flux measurements are scarce. Here, we provide multi-year data derived from on-ground soil flux (n = 1558) and riverine dissolved gas concentration (n = 332) measurements spanning montane, swamp, and lowland forests. Each forest type core monitoring site was sampled at least for one hydrological year between 2016 - 2020 at a frequency of 7-14 days. We estimate a terrestrial CH4 uptake (in kg CH4-C ha-1 yr-1) for montane (-4.28) and lowland forests (-3.52) and a massive CH4 release from swamp forests (non-inundated 2.68; inundated 341). All investigated forest types were a N2O source (except for inundated swamp forest) with 0.93, 1.56, 3.5, and -0.19 kg N2O-N ha-1 yr-1 for montane, lowland, non-inundated swamp, and inundated swamp forests, respectively.

FunAndes - A functional trait database of Andean plants.

We introduce the FunAndes database, a compilation of functional trait data for the Andean flora spanning six countries. FunAndes contains data on 24 traits across 2,694 taxa, for a total of 105,466 entries. The database features plant-morphological attributes including growth form, and leaf, stem, and wood traits measured at the species or individual level, together with geographic metadata (i.e., coordinates and elevation). FunAndes follows the field names, trait descriptions and units of measurement of the TRY database. It is currently available in open access in the FIGSHARE data repository, and will be part of TRY's next release. Open access trait data from Andean plants will contribute to ecological research in the region, the most species rich terrestrial biodiversity hotspot.

In-depth analysis of N2O fluxes in tropical forest soils of the Congo Basin combining isotope and functional gene analysis.

Primary tropical forests generally exhibit large gaseous nitrogen (N) losses, occurring as nitric oxide (NO), nitrous oxide (N2O) or elemental nitrogen (N2). The release of N2O is of particular concern due to its high global warming potential and destruction of stratospheric ozone. Tropical forest soils are predicted to be among the largest natural sources of N2O; however, despite being the world's second-largest rainforest, measurements of gaseous N-losses from forest soils of the Congo Basin are scarce. In addition, long-term studies investigating N2O fluxes from different forest ecosystem types (lowland and montane forests) are scarce. In this study we show that fluxes measured in the Congo Basin were lower than fluxes measured in the Neotropics, and in the tropical forests of Australia and South East Asia. In addition, we show that despite different climatic conditions, average annual N2O fluxes in the Congo Basin's lowland forests (0.97 ± 0.53 kg N ha-1 year-1) were comparable to those in its montane forest (0.88 ± 0.97 kg N ha-1 year-1). Measurements of soil pore air N2O isotope data at multiple depths suggests that a microbial reduction of N2O to N2 within the soil may account for the observed low surface N2O fluxes and low soil pore N2O concentrations. The potential for microbial reduction is corroborated by a significant abundance and expression of the gene nosZ in soil samples from both study sites. Although isotopic and functional gene analyses indicate an enzymatic potential for complete denitrification, combined gaseous N-losses (N2O, N2) are unlikely to account for the missing N-sink in these forests. Other N-losses such as NO, N2 via Feammox or hydrological particulate organic nitrogen export could play an important role in soils of the Congo Basin and should be the focus of future research.

Fire-derived phosphorus fertilization of African tropical forests.

Central African tropical forests face increasing anthropogenic pressures, particularly in the form of deforestation and land-use conversion to agriculture. The long-term effects of this transformation of pristine forests to fallow-based agroecosystems and secondary forests on biogeochemical cycles that drive forest functioning are poorly understood. Here, we show that biomass burning on the African continent results in high phosphorus (P) deposition on an equatorial forest via fire-derived atmospheric emissions. Furthermore, we show that deposition loads increase with forest regrowth age, likely due to increasing canopy complexity, ranging from 0.4 kg P ha-1 yr-1 on agricultural fields to 3.1 kg P ha-1 yr-1 on old secondary forests. In forest systems, canopy wash-off of dry P deposition increases with rainfall amount, highlighting how tropical forest canopies act as dynamic reservoirs for enhanced addition of this essential plant nutrient. Overall, the observed P deposition load at the study site is substantial and demonstrates the importance of canopy trapping as a pathway for nutrient input into forest ecosystems.

Large-sized rare tree species contribute disproportionately to functional diversity in resource acquisition in African tropical forest.

Increasing evidence is available for a positive effect of biodiversity on ecosystem productivity and standing biomass, also in highly diverse systems as tropical forests. Biodiversity conservation could therefore be a critical aspect of climate mitigation policies. There is, however, limited understanding of the role of individual species for this relationship, which could aid in focusing conservation efforts and forest management planning. This study characterizes the functional specialization and redundancy for 95% of all tree species (basal area weighted percentage) in a diverse tropical forest in the central Congo Basin and relates this to species' abundance, contribution to aboveground carbon, and maximum size. Functional characterization is based on a set of traits related to resource acquisition (wood density, specific leaf area, leaf carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus content, and leaf stable carbon isotope composition). We show that within both mixed and monodominant tropical forest ecosystems, the highest functional specialization and lowest functional redundancy are solely found in rare tree species and significantly more in rare species holding large-sized individuals. Rare species cover the entire range of low and high functional redundancy, contributing both unique and redundant functions. Loss of species supporting functional redundancy could be buffered by other species in the community, including more abundant species. This is not the case for species supporting high functional specialization and low functional redundancy, which would need specific conservation attention. In terms of tropical forest management planning, we argue that specific conservation of large-sized trees is imperative for long-term maintenance of ecosystem functioning.

Mobilization of aged and biolabile soil carbon by tropical deforestation.

In the mostly pristine Congo Basin, agricultural land-use change has intensified in recent years. One potential and understudied consequence of this deforestation and conversion to agriculture is the mobilization and loss of organic matter from soils to rivers as dissolved organic matter. Here, we quantify and characterize dissolved organic matter sampled from 19 catchments of varying deforestation extent near Lake Kivu over a two-week period during the wet season. Dissolved organic carbon from deforested, agriculturally-dominated catchments was older (14C age: ~1.5kyr) and more biolabile than from pristine forest catchments. Ultrahigh-resolution mass spectrometry revealed that this aged organic matter from deforested catchments was energy-rich and chemodiverse, with higher proportions of nitrogen- and sulfur-containing formulae. Given the molecular composition and biolability, we suggest that organic matter from deforested landscapes is preferentially respired upon disturbance, resulting in elevated in-stream concentrations of carbon dioxide. We estimate that while deforestation reduces the overall flux of dissolved organic carbon by ~56%, it does not significantly change the yield of biolabile dissolved organic carbon. Ultimately, the exposure of deeper soil horizons through deforestation and agricultural expansion releases old, previously stable, and biolabile soil organic carbon into the modern carbon cycle via the aquatic pathway.

Global trait-environment relationships of plant communities.

Plant functional traits directly affect ecosystem functions. At the species level, trait combinations depend on trade-offs representing different ecological strategies, but at the community level trait combinations are expected to be decoupled from these trade-offs because different strategies can facilitate co-existence within communities. A key question is to what extent community-level trait composition is globally filtered and how well it is related to global versus local environmental drivers. Here, we perform a global, plot-level analysis of trait-environment relationships, using a database with more than 1.1 million vegetation plots and 26,632 plant species with trait information. Although we found a strong filtering of 17 functional traits, similar climate and soil conditions support communities differing greatly in mean trait values. The two main community trait axes that capture half of the global trait variation (plant stature and resource acquisitiveness) reflect the trade-offs at the species level but are weakly associated with climate and soil conditions at the global scale. Similarly, within-plot trait variation does not vary systematically with macro-environment. Our results indicate that, at fine spatial grain, macro-environmental drivers are much less important for functional trait composition than has been assumed from floristic analyses restricted to co-occurrence in large grid cells. Instead, trait combinations seem to be predominantly filtered by local-scale factors such as disturbance, fine-scale soil conditions, niche partitioning and biotic interactions.

Isotopic evidence for oligotrophication of terrestrial ecosystems.

Human societies depend on an Earth system that operates within a constrained range of nutrient availability, yet the recent trajectory of terrestrial nitrogen (N) availability is uncertain. Examining patterns of foliar N concentrations and isotope ratios (δ15N) from more than 43,000 samples acquired over 37 years, here we show that foliar N concentration declined by 9% and foliar δ15N declined by 0.6-1.6‰. Examining patterns across different climate spaces, foliar δ15N declined across the entire range of mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation tested. These results suggest declines in N supply relative to plant demand at the global scale. In all, there are now multiple lines of evidence of declining N availability in many unfertilized terrestrial ecosystems, including declines in δ15N of tree rings and leaves from herbarium samples over the past 75-150 years. These patterns are consistent with the proposed consequences of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide and longer growing seasons. These declines will limit future terrestrial carbon uptake and increase nutritional stress for herbivores.