Soil Nutrient Depletion and Tree Functional Composition Shift Following Repeated Clearing in Secondary Forests of the Congo Basin

Bauters, Marijn; Moonen, Pieter; Summerauer, Laura; Doetterl, Sebastian; Wasner, Daniel; Griepentrog, Marco; Mumbanza, Francis M.; Ewango, Corneille E. N.; Boyemba, Faustin; Six, Johan; Muys, Bart; Verbist, Bruno; Boeckx, Pascal; Verheyen, Kris

doi:10.1007/s10021-020-00593-6

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Sayer et al (2019) showed that increasing litter input does not increase the capacity of tropical soils to sequester carbon. Some categories of land use have a stronger effect on SOC than others (Bauters et al, 2021). For instance, intensive agriculture and pasture can lower SOC to 25% in comparison to the OG after a decade (Rhoades et al, 2000;Anaya & Hubersannwald, 2015), while this was not observed under shifting cultivation.…”

Section: Carbon Stock Recoverymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite these differences, Central African forest -the second largest contiguous block of tropical forest -is still widely understudied (Verbeeck et al, 2011). Only a handful of studies have focused on the recovery potential of C stocks, biodiversity, and the environmental consequences of the traditional slash-and-burn agriculture for the Central Congo basin forest (Mukul, Herbohn & Firn, 2016;Bauters et al, 2019aBauters et al, , 2019bMoonen et al, 2019;Bauters et al, 2021). This lack of studies complicates the evaluation of forest recovery potential in the Central Congo basin.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Afrotropical secondary forests exhibit fast diversity and functional recovery, but slow compositional and carbon recovery after shifting cultivation

Makelele

Verheyen

Boeckx

et al. 2021

J Vegetation Science

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Questions: Human disturbance is increasingly affecting forest dynamics across the tropics. Forests can recover via natural secondary succession to pre-disturbance levels of biodiversity, species composition, and ecosystem carbon stocks. Central Africa will be subject to increasingly high shifting-cultivation pressure in the next decades, but succession trajectories of these ecosystem properties are still poorly known for the Congo basin. We addressed two questions: (1) how does taxonomic and functional composition and diversity shift during secondary succession; and (2) how fast do above-ground carbon stocks recover during secondary succession in tropical forests?Location: Central Congo basin. Methods:We conducted an inventory of trees (diameter at breast height [DBH] ≥ 10 cm), measured species traits and soil texture and carbon content in 18 plots, located along six secondary succession stages (i.e., from agricultural to old growth forest sites). We measured tree diameter, height for 20% of trees distributed across diameter classes, wood traits from all species, and leaf traits from species that contributed to 85% of the plot basal area. Results:We showed that secondary forests recover relatively fast in terms of tree species diversity, alpha functional diversity, and fine-root carbon, with near-oldgrowth forest values after six decades past disturbance, while floristic composition exhibited slower recovery. Secondary forests only partially shifted from acquisitive to a conservative life history, with shifts in leaf traits being largely decoupled from wood traits. Only 43% of above-ground carbon recovered after 60 years of forest regrowth, potentially through a slow recovery of the large-sized tree stems that dominate carbon stocks of old-growth forests. Conclusions:Our findings underline the capacity of Afrotropical forests to recover species and alpha functional diversity after clear-cutting through shifting cultivation.Simultaneously, old-growth forests harbor a particular floristic community and store 2 of 13 |

show abstract

Section: Carbon Stock Recoverymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Afrotropical secondary forests exhibit fast diversity and functional recovery, but slow compositional and carbon recovery after shifting cultivation

Makelele

Verheyen

Boeckx

et al. 2021

J Vegetation Science

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Markewitz et al 2004;Winbourne et al 2018;Kukla et al 2019). Relatively extensive agricultural activity such as the shifting cultivation at our study site tends to preserve nitrogen (Bauters et al 2021b). The conservation of substantial N in the soil should facilitate rapid recuperation of many processes of the N cycle (Davidson et al 2007;Winbourne et al 2018).…”

Section: Soil and Leaching N Fluxesmentioning

confidence: 89%

Conservative N cycling despite high atmospheric deposition in early successional African tropical lowland forests

et al. 2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

that forests of the Congo basin are subject to high inputs of atmospheric N deposition, potentially alleviating this N limitation in early succession. Methods To address this hypothesis, we assessed the N status along a successional gradient of secondary forests in the Congo basin. In a set-up of 18 plots implemented along six successional stages, we quantified year-round N deposition, N leaching, N 2 O emission and the N flux of litterfall and fine root assimilation. Additionally, we determined the N content and C:N stoichiometry for canopy leaves, fine roots, and litter, as well as δ 15 N of canopy leaves.

show abstract

“…Soil redistribution is also known to change the temporal and spatial patterns of soil weathering and affects C stabilization. In agricultural systems, the effects of this pressure can be observed very clearly: erosion removes weathered soil from eroding slopes but also brings the soil weathering front into closer contact with the C cycle (which occurs primarily in topsoils), thereby affecting carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus (CNP) cycling and the stabilization of C with minerals in these systems (e.g., Berhe et al, 2012;Park et al, 2014;Doetterl et al, 2016).…”

Section: Tropical Soils Responding To Disturbancementioning

confidence: 99%

Organic matter cycling along geochemical, geomorphic, and disturbance gradients in forest and cropland of the African Tropics – project TropSOC database version 1.0

Doetterl

Asifiwe

Baert

et al. 2021

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. The African Tropics are hotspots of modern-day land use change and are, at the same time, of great relevance for the cycling of carbon (C) and nutrients between plants, soils, and the atmosphere. However, the consequences of land conversion on biogeochemical cycles are still largely unknown as they are not studied in a landscape context that defines the geomorphic, geochemical, and pedological framework in which biological processes take place. Thus, the response of tropical soils to disturbance by erosion and land conversion is one of the great uncertainties in assessing the carrying capacity of tropical landscapes to grow food for future generations and in predicting greenhouse gas fluxes from soils to the atmosphere and, hence, future earth system dynamics. Here we describe version 1.0 of an open-access database created as part of the project “Tropical soil organic carbon dynamics along erosional disturbance gradients in relation to variability in soil geochemistry and land use” (TropSOC). TropSOC v1.0 (Doetterl et al., 2021, https://doi.org/10.5880/fidgeo.2021.009) contains spatially and temporally explicit data on soil, vegetation, environmental properties, and land management collected from 136 pristine tropical forest and cropland plots between 2017 and 2020 as part of monitoring and sampling campaigns in the eastern Congo Basin and the East African Rift Valley system. The results of several laboratory experiments focusing on soil microbial activity, C cycling, and C stabilization in soils complement the dataset to deliver one of the first landscape-scale datasets to study the linkages and feedbacks between geology, geomorphology, and pedogenesis as controls on biogeochemical cycles in a variety of natural and managed systems in the African Tropics. The hierarchical and interdisciplinary structure of the TropSOC database allows linking of a wide range of parameters and observations on soil and vegetation dynamics along with other supporting information that may also be measured at one or more levels of the hierarchy. TropSOC's data mark a significant contribution to improve our understanding of the fate of biogeochemical cycles in dynamic and diverse tropical African (agro-)ecosystems. TropSOC v1.0 can be accessed through the Supplement provided as part of this paper or as a separate download via the websites of the Congo Biogeochemistry Observatory and GFZ Data Services where version updates to the database will be provided as the project develops.

show abstract

Soil Nutrient Depletion and Tree Functional Composition Shift Following Repeated Clearing in Secondary Forests of the Congo Basin

Cited by 12 publications

References 51 publications

Afrotropical secondary forests exhibit fast diversity and functional recovery, but slow compositional and carbon recovery after shifting cultivation

Afrotropical secondary forests exhibit fast diversity and functional recovery, but slow compositional and carbon recovery after shifting cultivation

Conservative N cycling despite high atmospheric deposition in early successional African tropical lowland forests

Organic matter cycling along geochemical, geomorphic, and disturbance gradients in forest and cropland of the African Tropics – project TropSOC database version 1.0

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About