Changes in soil carbon and nutrients following 6 years of litter removal and addition in a tropical semi-evergreen rain forest

Tanner, Edmund Vincent John; Sheldrake, Merlin W. A.; Turner, Benjamin L.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-6183-2016

Articles | Volume 13, issue 22

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-6183-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-6183-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 22

Research article

|

17 Nov 2016

Research article |

| 17 Nov 2016

Changes in soil carbon and nutrients following 6 years of litter removal and addition in a tropical semi-evergreen rain forest

Edmund Vincent John Tanner, Merlin W. A. Sheldrake, and Benjamin L. Turner

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Final revised paper (published on 17 Nov 2016)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 29 Jul 2016)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Tanner et al Review', Will Wieder, 26 Aug 2016
- AC1: 'Tanner response to Wieder', Edmund Tanner, 19 Oct 2016
RC2: 'Review of bg-2016-229', Anonymous Referee #2, 03 Oct 2016
- AC2: 'Tanner response to Rev. 2', Edmund Tanner, 19 Oct 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (24 Oct 2016) by Sönke Zaehle

AR by Edmund Tanner on behalf of the Authors (27 Oct 2016) Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (01 Nov 2016) by Sönke Zaehle

AR by Edmund Tanner on behalf of the Authors (01 Nov 2016) Author's response Manuscript

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Short summary

Tropical rain forest are likely to grow more, and produce more litterfall, as a result of increasing temperature and carbon dioxide. We experimentally doubled litterfall in large plots in forest in Panama; there were also removal plots. After 6 years of continuously adding litter, we found that soil organic matter and many plant-available nutrients were increased down to as far as 30 cm into the soil. This increase in organic carbon in the soil reduces the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.