Marife D. Corre

Abstract Tropical forest productivity is increasingly reported to be nutrient limited, which may affect its response to seasonal droughts. Yet experimental evidence on nutrient limitation from Afrotropical forests remains rare. We conducted an ecosystem-scale, full factorial nitrogen (N)–phosphorus (P)–potassium (K) addition experiment in a moist forest in Uganda to investigate nutrient controls on fine litter production and foliar chemistry.

Abstract Most stem CH4 emission investigations were conducted in wetland forests, and it remains unknown whether trees in tropical rainforests on heavily weathered soils are substantial contributors to ecosystem CH4 fluxes. Additionally, Africa remains the continent with the lowest numbers of published field studies on soil greenhouse gas fluxes. Over one year, we measured monthly stem and soil CH4 fluxes with forest conversion to traditional cacao agroforestry in the Congo Basin, Cameroon.

Forests in focus In light of the urgent need to mitigate climate change, many governments and companies are looking to the natural world for help, most notably through plans to plant forests to remove carbon from the atmosphere. However, the carbon — and social — dynamics of forests are complex.