Soil fertility controls on tropical forest productivity and mortality: synthesis and roadmap
Year: 2026
Type: article
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.
Source: New Phytologist
DOI: 10.1111/nph.71367
Authors: Michelle Y. Wong, Sarah A. Batterman, Jane M. Lucas, Katrin Fleischer, Mark S. Ashton, Marijn Bauters, David F. R. P. Burslem, KC Cushman, James W. Dalling, Sebastian Doetterl, Adriane Esquivel‐Muelbert, Claire Fortunel, Jennifer A. Holm, Nohemi Huanca‐Nunez, Guopeng Liang, Moses B. Libalah, Demetrius Lira‐Martins, Jose A. Medina‐Vega, Helene C. Muller‐Landau, Jessica Needham, Elsa M. Ordway, Mareli Sánchez‐Juliá, Laura Toro, Xiangtao Xu, S. Joseph Wright, Gabriela Zuquim, Evan M. Gora
Institutions: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Yale University, University of Leeds, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Ghent University, University of Aberdeen, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, ETH Zurich, University of Cambridge, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement, Université de Montpellier, Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement, UMR Botanique et Modélisation de l’Architecture des Plantes et des végétations, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of Michigan, Université de Yaoundé I, ForestGEO, CICERO Center for International Climate Research, University of California, Los Angeles, Missouri Botanical Garden, Cornell University, University of Turku, CSC - IT Center for Science (Finland)
Language: English
Subfield: Nature and Landscape Conservation
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7166560366