Trees increase their P:N ratio with size.

ABSTRACT:

Aim

Phosphorus (P) tends to become limiting in aging terrestrial ecosystems, and its resorption efficiency is higher than for other elements such as nitrogen (N). We thus hypothesized that trees should store more P than those other elements such as N when tree size increases and that this process should be enhanced in slow-growing late successional trees.

Location

Catalan forests.

Methods

We have used data from the Catalan Forest Inventory that contains field data of the P and N contents of total aboveground, foliar and woody biomasses of the diverse Mediterranean, temperate and alpine forests of Catalonia (1018 sites). We used correlation and general lineal models (GLM) to analyze the allometric relationships between nutrient contents of different aboveground biomass

SUBMITTER: Sardans J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4430815 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature