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Article
Open AccessNitrogen and potassium limit fine root growth in a humid Afrotropical forest
Nutrient limitations play a key regulatory role in plant growth, thereby affecting ecosystem productivity and carbon uptake. Experimental observations identifying the most limiting nutrients are lacking, parti...
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Article
Open AccessResponse of tropical forest productivity to seasonal drought mediated by potassium and phosphorus availability
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 rema...
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Article
Open AccessSoil gross N2O emission and uptake under two contrasting agroforestry systems: riparian tree buffer versus alley-crop** tree row
In addition to the removal of excess mineral nitrogen (N) via root uptake, trees in agroforestry systems may mitigate negative effects of high N fertilization of adjacent crops by enhancing complete denitrific...
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Article
Open AccessMechanical weeding enhances ecosystem multifunctionality and profit in industrial oil palm
Oil palm is the most productive oil crop, but its high productivity is associated with conventional management (that is, high fertilization rates and herbicide application), causing deleterious environmental i...
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Article
Open AccessMultifunctionality of temperate alley-crop** agroforestry outperforms open cropland and grassland
Intensively managed open croplands are highly productive but often have deleterious environmental impacts. Temperate agroforestry potentially improves ecosystem functions, although comprehensive analysis is la...
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Article
Open AccessSoil greenhouse gas fluxes from tropical vegetable farms, using forest as a reference
Field-based quantification of soil greenhouse gas emissions from the Philippines’ agriculture sector is missing for vegetable production systems, despite its substantial contribution to agricultural production...
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Article
Open AccessMulching with pruned fronds promotes the internal soil N cycling and soil fertility in a large-scale oil palm plantation
Intensive management practices in large-scale oil palm plantations can slow down nutrient cycling and alter other soil functions. Thus, there is a need to reduce management intensity without sacrificing produc...
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Article
Open AccessNutrient saturation of crop monocultures and agroforestry indicated by nutrient response efficiency
Efficient use of nutrients is a key requisite for a sustainable intensification of agriculture in order to meet the increasing global crop demand while minimizing deleterious environmental impacts. Agroforestr...
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Article
Open AccessSoil greenhouse gas fluxes following conventional selective and reduced-impact logging in a Congo Basin rainforest
Selective logging is among the main causes of tropical forest degradation, but little is known about its effects on greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes from highly weathered Ferralsol soils in Africa. We measured soil CO
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Article
Deforestation and reforestation impacts on soils in the tropics
Soils under natural, tropical forests provide essential ecosystem services that have been shaped by long-term soil–vegetation feedbacks. However, deforestation of tropical forest, with a net rate of 5.5 millio...
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Article
Open AccessTrade-offs between multifunctionality and profit in tropical smallholder landscapes
Land-use transitions can enhance the livelihoods of smallholder farmers but potential economic-ecological trade-offs remain poorly understood. Here, we present an interdisciplinary study of the environmental, ...
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Article
Open AccessMeasured greenhouse gas budgets challenge emission savings from palm-oil biodiesel
The potential of palm-oil biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared with fossil fuels is increasingly questioned. So far, no measurement-based GHG budgets were available, and plantation age wa...
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Article
Nitrous oxide emissions from stems of alder, beech and spruce in a temperate forest
Although plants are recognized as conduits for soil-produced N2O, little is known about N2O fluxes from mature trees under field conditions as well as their contribution to total (soil + stem) N2O fluxes. Exclusi...
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Article
Direct and cascading impacts of tropical land-use change on multi-trophic biodiversity
The conversion of tropical rainforest to agricultural systems such as oil palm alters biodiversity across a large range of interacting taxa and trophic levels. Yet, it remains unclear how direct and cascading ...
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Chapter and Conference Paper
Partial Nutrient Budget from Lowland Forests Converted to Oil Palm and Rubber Plantations in Sumatra, Indonesia
Forest conversion to agricultural land may affect nutrient budget due to different soil management intensity. Our study aimed to assess partial nutrient budget from forest converted to rubber and oil palm plan...
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Article
Open AccessDisentangling gross N2O production and consumption in soil
The difficulty of measuring gross N2O production and consumption in soil impedes our ability to predict N2O dynamics across the soil-atmosphere interface. Our study aimed to disentangle these processes by compari...
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Article
Tree-microbial biomass competition for nutrients in a temperate deciduous forest, central Germany
Our goals were (1) to determine whether tree species diversity affects nutrient (N, P and K) cycling, and (2) to assess whether there is competition for these nutrients between microbial biomass and trees.
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Article
Open AccessLand-use choices follow profitability at the expense of ecological functions in Indonesian smallholder landscapes
Smallholder-dominated agricultural mosaic landscapes are highlighted as model production systems that deliver both economic and ecological goods in tropical agricultural landscapes, but trade-offs underlying c...
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Article
Free-living nitrogen fixation responds to elevated nutrient inputs in tropical montane forest floor and canopy soils of southern Ecuador
Although often overlooked in forest research, the canopy can play an important role in forest nutrient cycling. Since the canopy is spatially isolated from the forest floor, nutrient cycling in the two areas m...
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Article
Open AccessImplementing REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation): evidence on governance, evaluation and impacts from the REDD-ALERT project
The REDD-ALERT (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation from Alternative Land Uses in the Rainforests of the Tropics) project started in 2009 and finished in 2012, and had the aim of evaluating m...
