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Foliar Stoichiometry is Marginally Sensitive to Soil Phosphorus Across a Lowland Tropical Rainforest

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Abstract

The distribution of nutrients, both vertically and horizontally in a forest, has long been theorized to influence primary productivity. Working at La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica, we gathered the most comprehensive foliar samples to date for a lowland tropical rainforest to measure horizontal and vertical trends in foliar nutrients. The mean traits of foliage from forest floor to top-of-canopy were determined at 45 plots placed across the landscape in a stratified random design. Area-basis foliar N and P for these vertically integrated columns varied by a factor of 3, while foliar N:P and mass-basis foliar N and P varied by a factor of 2. The variance in plot-level foliar N:P and P was best explained by total soil P, while variance in foliar N was best explained by soil pH (regression trees: r2 \(\ge \) 0.20, p \(\le \) 0.01). Other soil, topographic, and forest structure factors offered no additional explanatory power for variation of foliar nutrients from plot to plot. To explore vertical trends, we aggregated the data across the landscape into ~ 2 m vertical segments. We found that foliar N:P was unrelated to height in the canopy, and that area-basis foliar N and P increased with height in the canopy (linear regression: r2 = 0.82 and r2 = 0.65 respectively, p < 0.0001 for both). We compared these vertical trends to those of the eight other elements quantified in the leaves, and the only other element enriched with height was potassium (K). Vertical nutrient enrichment was driven by increases in leaf mass per area (LMA), not mass-basis concentrations. Altogether, these findings suggest that, even in diverse tropical rainforests, foliar chemistry may reflect environmental constraints.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (Geosciences #0223284). AM also received funding from the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society. We thank the TOWERS Project field crew and technicians, the laboratory staff and forest technicians Leonel Campos and William Miranda, and OTS, particularly Don Isaías Alvarado for construction advice and Ms. Cynthia Rossi for GIS assistance and LiDAR data processing. Loren Albert, John Burley, KC Cushman, James Kellner, Lindsay McCulloch, and Dafeng Zhang provided helpful feedback on early drafts of the manuscript. We also thank Christian Giardina and two anonymous reviewers for a highly constructive peer review process which greatly improved the quality of the manuscript.

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  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, 80 Waterman St, Providence, Rhode Island, 02912, USA

    Audrey Massmann & Stephen Porder

  2. College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, Michigan Technological University, 1400 Townsend Dr, Houghton, Michigan, 49931, USA

    Molly A. Cavaleri

  3. Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th St, Miami, Florida, 33199, USA

    Steven F. Oberbauer

  4. GIS and Remote Sensing Center, Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th St, Miami, Florida, 33199, USA

    Paulo C. Olivas

  5. Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Brown University, 85 Waterman St, Providence, Rhode Island, 02912, USA

    Audrey Massmann & Stephen Porder

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Correspondence to Audrey Massmann.

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PCO and SFO designed the field study. MAC and PCO collected samples and performed lab analyses. AM, MAC, and SP analyzed data. AM, MAC, and SP wrote the paper. All authors participated in editing the paper.

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Massmann, A., Cavaleri, M.A., Oberbauer, S.F. et al. Foliar Stoichiometry is Marginally Sensitive to Soil Phosphorus Across a Lowland Tropical Rainforest. Ecosystems 25, 61–74 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-021-00640-w

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