Patterns of nitrogen-fixing tree abundance in forests across Asia and America

Menge, DNL and Chisholm, RA and Davies, SJ and Abu Salim, K and Allen, D and Alvarez, M and Bourg, N and Brockelman, WY and Bunyavejchewin, S and Butt, N and Cao, M and Chanthorn, W and Chao, WC and Clay, K and Condit, R and Cordell, S and da Silva, JB and Dattaraja, HS and de Andrade, ACS and de Oliveira, AA and den Ouden, J and Drescher, M and Fletcher, C and Giardina, CP and Savitri Gunatilleke, CV and Gunatilleke, IAUN and Hau, BCH and He, F and Howe, R and Hsieh, CF and Hubbell, SP and Inman-Narahari,, FM and Jansen, PA and Johnson, DJ and Kong, LS and Král, K and Ku, CC and Lai, J and Larson, AJ and Li, X and Li, Y and Lin, L and Lin, Y and Lin, S and Liu, S and Lum, SKY and Lutz, JA and Ma, K and Malhi, Y and McMahon, S and McShea, W and Mi, X and Morecroft, M and Myers, JA and Nathalang, A and Novotny, V and Ong, P and Orwig, DA and Ostertag, R and Parker, G and Phillips, RP and Abd. Rahman, K and Sack, L and Sang, W and Shen, G and Shringi, A and Shue, J and Su, SH (2019) Patterns of nitrogen-fixing tree abundance in forests across Asia and America. In: Journal of Ecology, 107 (6). pp. 2598-2610.

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Abstract

Abstract 1. Symbiotic nitrogen (N)‐fixing trees can provide large quantities of new N to ecosystems, but only if they are sufficiently abundant. The overall abundance and latitudinal abundance distributions of N‐fixing trees are well characterised in the Americas, but less well outside the Americas. 2. Here, we characterised the abundance of N‐fixing trees in a network of forest plots spanning five continents, ~5,000 tree species and ~4 million trees.The majority of the plots (86%)were in America o rAsia. In addition, we examined whether the observed pattern of abundance of N‐fixing trees was correlated with mean annual temperature and precipitation. 3.Outside the tropics, N‐fixing trees were consistently rare in the forest plots we examined. Within the tropics, N‐fixing trees were abundant in American but not Asian forest plots (~7% versus ~1% of basal area and stems). This disparity was not explained by mean annual temperature or precipitation. Our finding of low N‐fixing tree abundance in the Asian tropics casts some doubt on recent high estimates of N fixation rates in this region, which do not account for disparities in N‐fixing tree abundance between the Asian and American tropics. 4. Synthesis. Inputs of nitrogen to forests depend on symbiotic nitrogen fixation, which is constrained by the abundance of N‐fixing trees. By analysing a large dataset of ~4 million trees, we found that N‐fixing trees were consistently rare in the Asian tropics as well as across higher latitudes in Asia, America and Europe. The rarity of N‐fixing trees in the Asian tropics compared with the American tropics might stem from lower intrinsic N limitation in Asian tropical forests, although direct support for any mechanism is lacking. The paucity of N‐fixing trees throughout Asian forests suggests that N inputs to the Asian tropics might be lower than previously thought

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Journal of Ecology
Publisher:	Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Ecological Sciences
Date Deposited:	26 Feb 2020 09:27
Last Modified:	04 Mar 2020 10:16
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/63807

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