Phosphorus Sorption to Tropical Soils with Relevance to Earth System Model Needs

This data set comprehensively describes the soil sources, properties and isotherm values from a study analyzing the phosphorus (P) sorption properties of tropical soils. Twenty-five tropical soils and two subtropical soils, from both A and B horizons, were selected from archived soils at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Five soil orders – Aridisols, Andisols, Inceptisols, and Oxisols – and seven different regions – Kenya, Brazil, Puerto Rico and Hawaii in the United States, Costa Rica, Panama, and China – were represented in this study.By determining the relationships between soil physical properties and P sorption maxima, this study aimed to better inform Earth system models (ESM) that are incorporating soil P sorption processes into P cycles, alongside carbon and nitrogen cycles. This data set contains one file with soil source information and their corresponding physical characteristics and isotherm values (Soil_Sources_Properties_and_Isotherms_2018.xlsx) and a document with metadata and methods information (Soil_Sources_Properties_and_Isotherms_2018.docx). This dataset was originally published on the NGEE Tropics Archive and is being mirrored on ESS-DIVE for long-term archival Acknowledgement: This material is based upon work supported as part of the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiments-Tropics (NGEE-Tropics) funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biologicaland Environmental Research through contract No. DEAC0205CH11231 to LBNL, as part of DOE’s TerrestrialEcosystem Science Program. Additional funding for this research was provided by the Brazilian Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq). We would like to thank the Forest Management (MF), Climate and Environment (CLIAMB) and Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere (LBA) programs at the National Institute for Amazon Research (INPA) for logistical and infrastructure support during field measurements.