Life Sciences Commons^™

Assessing Nutrient Limitation In Complex Forested Ecosystems : Alternatives To Large-Scale Fertilization Experiments, Benjamin W. Sullivan, Silvia Alvarez-Clare, Sarah C. Castle, Stephen Porder, Sasha C. Reed, Laura Schreeg, Cory C. Cleveland, Alan R. Townsend

Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences Faculty Publications

Quantifying nutrient limitation of primary productivity is a fundamental task of terrestrial ecosystem ecology, but in a high carbon dioxide environment it is even more critical that we understand potential nutrient constraints on plant growth. Ecologists often manipulate nutrients with fertilizer to assess nutrient limitation, yet for a variety of reasons, nutrient fertilization experiments are either impractical or incapable of resolving ecosystem responses to some global changes. The challenges of conducting large, in situ fertilization experiments are magnified in forests, especially the high-diversity forests common throughout the lowland tropics. A number of methods, including fertilization experiments, could be seen as …