Integrating stand and soil properties to understand foliar nutrient dynamics during forest succession following slash-and-burn agriculture in the Bolivian Amazon

Eben N Broadbent; Angélica M Almeyda Zambrano; Gregory P Asner; Marlene Soriano; Christopher B Field; Harrison Ramos de Souza; Marielos Peña-Claros; Rachel I Adams; Rodolfo Dirzo; Larry Giles

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0086042

Integrating stand and soil properties to understand foliar nutrient dynamics during forest succession following slash-and-burn agriculture in the Bolivian Amazon

PLoS One. 2014 Feb 7;9(2):e86042. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0086042. eCollection 2014.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, California, United States of America ; Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America ; Sustainability Science Program, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America.
² Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, California, United States of America ; Sustainability Science Program, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America ; Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America.
³ Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, California, United States of America.
⁴ Instituto Boliviano de Investigación Forestal, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.
⁵ Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, California, United States of America ; Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America.
⁶ Centro de Investigación y Preservación de la Amazonia, Universidad Amazónica de Pando, Cobija, Bolivia.
⁷ Instituto Boliviano de Investigación Forestal, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia ; Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands.
⁸ Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America.
⁹ Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America.

Abstract

Secondary forests cover large areas of the tropics and play an important role in the global carbon cycle. During secondary forest succession, simultaneous changes occur among stand structural attributes, soil properties, and species composition. Most studies classify tree species into categories based on their regeneration requirements. We use a high-resolution secondary forest chronosequence to assign trees to a continuous gradient in species successional status assigned according to their distribution across the chronosequence. Species successional status, not stand age or differences in stand structure or soil properties, was found to be the best predictor of leaf trait variation. Foliar δ(13)C had a significant positive relationship with species successional status, indicating changes in foliar physiology related to growth and competitive strategy, but was not correlated with stand age, whereas soil δ(13)C dynamics were largely constrained by plant species composition. Foliar δ(15)N had a significant negative correlation with both stand age and species successional status, - most likely resulting from a large initial biomass-burning enrichment in soil (15)N and (13)C and not closure of the nitrogen cycle. Foliar %C was neither correlated with stand age nor species successional status but was found to display significant phylogenetic signal. Results from this study are relevant to understanding the dynamics of tree species growth and competition during forest succession and highlight possibilities of, and potentially confounding signals affecting, the utility of leaf traits to understand community and species dynamics during secondary forest succession.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Agriculture*
Biomass
Bolivia
Carbon / metabolism
Ecosystem*
Forests*
Soil*

Substances

Soil
Carbon

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford University, a National Science Foundation (NSF) doctoral dissertation improvement grant and a Global Change Education Program Graduate Research Education Fellowship (GCEP GREF) from the U.S. Department of Energy. This work was partially conducted while E. Broadbent was a doctoral fellow and A. Almeyda Zambrano was a Giorgio Ruffolo Fellow in the Sustainability Science Program at Harvard University. Support from Italy’s Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea is gratefully acknowledged. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.