Nature Communications (Dec 2019)

Tropical carbon sink accelerated by symbiotic dinitrogen fixation

  • Jennifer H. Levy-Varon,
  • Sarah A. Batterman,
  • David Medvigy,
  • Xiangtao Xu,
  • Jefferson S. Hall,
  • Michiel van Breugel,
  • Lars O. Hedin

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13656-7
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 1
pp. 1 – 8

Abstract

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The contribution of symbiotic dinitrogen fixation to the forest carbon sink could change throughout forest succession. Here the authors model nitrogen cycling and light competition between trees based on data from Panamanian forest plots, showing that fixation contributes substantially to the carbon sink in early successional stages.