Fire-derived phosphorus fertilization of African tropical forests

Marijn Bauters (), Travis W. Drake, Sasha Wagner, Simon Baumgartner, Isaac A. Makelele, Samuel Bodé, Kris Verheyen, Hans Verbeeck, Corneille Ewango, Landry Cizungu, Kristof Oost and Pascal Boeckx
Additional contact information
Marijn Bauters: Ghent University
Travis W. Drake: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich
Sasha Wagner: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Simon Baumgartner: Ghent University
Isaac A. Makelele: Ghent University
Samuel Bodé: Ghent University
Kris Verheyen: Ghent University
Hans Verbeeck: Ghent University
Corneille Ewango: Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources Management, University of Kisangani
Landry Cizungu: Soil Science Laboratory, Faculty of Agronomy, Université Catholique de Bukavu
Kristof Oost: UCLouvain
Pascal Boeckx: Ghent University

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract 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.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25428-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-25428-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25428-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().