TY - JOUR AU - Urbina, Ifigenia AU - Grau, Oriol AU - Sardans, Jordi AU - Margalef, Olga AU - Peguero, Guillermo AU - Asensio, Dolores AU - Llusia, Joan AU - Ogaya, Roma AU - Gargallo-Garriga, Albert AU - Van Langenhove, Leandro AU - Verryckt, Lore T. AU - Courtois, Elodie A. AU - Stahl, Clement AU - Soong, Jennifer L. AU - Chave, Jérome AU - Hérault, Bruno AU - Janssens, Ivan A. AU - Sayer, Emma AU - Penuelas, Josep PY - 2021// TI - High foliar K and P resorption efficiencies in old-growth tropical forests growing on nutrient-poor soils JO - Ecology and Evolution SP - 8969 EP - 8982 VL - 11 IS - 13 PB - Wiley N2 - Resorption is the active withdrawal of nutrients before leaf abscission. This mechanism represents an important strategy to maintain efficient nutrient cycling; however, resorption is poorly characterized in old-growth tropical forests growing in nutrient-poor soils. We investigated nutrient resorption from leaves in 39 tree species in two tropical forests on the Guiana Shield, French Guiana, to investigate whether resorption efficiencies varied with soil nutrient, seasonality, and species traits. The stocks of P in leaves, litter, and soil were low at both sites, indicating potential P limitation of the forests. Accordingly, mean resorption efficiencies were higher for P (35.9%) and potassium (K; 44.6%) than for nitrogen (N; 10.3%). K resorption was higher in the wet (70.2%) than in the dry (41.7%) season. P resorption increased slightly with decreasing total soil P; and N and P resorptions were positively related to their foliar concentrations. We conclude that nutrient resorption is a key plant nutrition strategy in these old-growth tropical forests, that trees with high foliar nutrient concentration reabsorb more nutrient, and that nutrients resorption in leaves, except P, are quite decoupled from nutrients in the soil. Seasonality and biochemical limitation played a role in the resorption of nutrients in leaves, but species-specific requirements obscured general tendencies at stand and ecosystem level. UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7734 N1 - exported from refbase (http://php.ecofog.gf/refbase/show.php?record=1011), last updated on Mon, 18 Jul 2022 13:33:45 -0300 ID - Urbina_etal2021 ER -