Soil phosphorus, litterfall mass, nitrogen and phosphorus in eight Puerto Rico forests affected by hurricanes Hugo, Bertha, Georges, Irma, and Maria.

Tropical cyclones are intensifying and occurring at higher latitudes in recent decades, but the mechanisms underpinning the resistance (ability to withstand disturbance-induced change) and resilience (pace of return to pre-disturbance reference values) of tropical forests to cyclones remains largely unexplored at the pantropical scale. We conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the role of soil resource availability (i.e., total soil phosphorus concentration) in mediating site-level forest canopy resistance and resilience to cyclones pan-tropically. We evaluated cyclone-induced and post-cyclone litterfall mass (g/m2/day), phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) fluxes (mg/m2/day), as well as concentrations (mg/g) across 73 case studies in Australia, Guadeloupe, Hawaii, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Taiwan (Bomfim et al., in review). This dataset includes information related to 42 case studies in eight Puerto Rico forests affected by hurricanes Hugo, Bertha, Georges, Irma, and Maria between 1989 and 2017. This dataset also includes data for the canopy trimming experiment (CTE) in El Verde.
- The compiled Litterfall Mass and Nitrogen and Phosphorus Flux and Concentration data from natural forest ecosystems across Puerto Rico prior to and after eight hurricanes are provided in Forest-Soil-Litterfall-Hurricane_Puerto-Rico.csv. This data file also includes site location, geographical characteristics, elevation, soil phosphorus concentration, geology, and several variables related to each hurricane disturbance.
Support for this work was provided by grants BSR-8811902, DEB-9411973, DEB-9705814 , DEB-0080538, DEB-0218039 , DEB-0620910 , DEB-1239764, DEB-1546686, and DEB-1831952 from the National Science Foundation to the University of Puerto Rico as part of the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Program. Additional support provided by the University of Puerto Rico and the International Institute of Tropical Forestry, USDA Forest Service.