Drivers of soil organic carbon stock during tropical forest succession

Soil organic matter contributes to productivity in terrestrial ecosystems and contains more carbon than is found in the atmosphere. Yet, there is little understanding of soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration processes during tropical forest succession, particularly after land abandonment from agriculture practices.
Here we used vegetation and environmental data from two large-scale surveys covering a total landscape area of 20,000 ha in Southeast Asia to investigate the effects of plant species diversity, functional trait diversity, phylogenetic diversity, aboveground biomass, and environmental factors on SOC sequestration during forest succession.
We found that functional trait diversity plays an important role in determining SOC sequestration across successional trajectories. Increases in SOC carbon storage were associated with indirect positive effects of species diversity and succession age via functional trait diversity, but phylogenetic diversity and aboveground biomass showed n..., ,