Interspecific differences in the responses of root phosphatase activities and morphology to nitrogen and phosphorus fertilization in Bornean tropical rain forests
Data files
Jul 15, 2025 version files 83.97 KB
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Apase.csv
15.86 KB
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Morphology.csv
66.60 KB
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README.md
1.51 KB
Abstract
Soil organic phosphorus (P) compounds can be the main P source for plants in P‐limited tropical rainforests. Phosphorus occurs in diverse chemical forms, including monoester P, diester P, and phytate, which require enzymatic hydrolysis by phosphatase into inorganic P before assimilation by plants. The interactions between plant interspecific differences in organic P acquisition strategies via phosphatase activities with root morphological traits would lead to P resource partitioning, but they have not been rigorously evaluated. We measured the activities of three classes of phosphatases (phosphomonoesterase, PME; phosphodiesterase, PDE; and phytase, PhT), specific root length (SRL), root diameter, and root tissue density in mature tree species with different mycorrhizal associations (ectomycorrhizal [ECM] or arbuscular mycorrhizal [AM]) and different successional status (climax or pioneer species) in Sabah, Malaysia. We studied nitrogen (N)‐ and P‐fertilized plots to evaluate the acquisition strategies for organic P under P‐limited conditions 7 years after fertilization was initiated. P fertilization reduced the PME activity in all studied species and reduced PhT and PDE activities more in climax species than in the two pioneer species, irrespective of the mycorrhizal type. PDE activity increased in some climax species after N fertilization, suggesting that these species allocate excess N to the synthesis of PDE. Moreover, PME and PhT activities, but not PDE activity, correlated positively with SRL. We suggest that climax species tend to be more strongly dependent on recalcitrant organic P (i.e., phytate and/or diester P) than pioneer species, regardless of the mycorrhizal type. We also suggest that trees in which root PME or PhT activity is enhanced can increase their SRL to acquire P efficiently. Resource partitioning of soil organic P would occur among species through differences in their phosphatase activities, which plays potentially ecologically important role in reducing the competition among coexisting tree species in lowland tropical rainforests.
Dataset DOI: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.905qfttm3
Description of the data and file structure
This is supplementary data used for analysis in the paper entitled “Interspecific differences in the responses of root phosphatase activities and morphology to nitrogen and phosphorus fertilization in Bornean tropical rain forests”. The csv files include the information on species name and values of root phosphatases and morphology. There are some missing data because of limited sample availability, which are indicated as NA.
Files and variables
File: Apase.csv and Morphology.csv
Variables
Common variable names:
- species: Species name of the sampled individual.
- treatment: fertilization treatment. C: control, N: N fertilization, P: P fertilization, NP: N and P fertilization together
- Plant_ID: tree tag number of the sampled individual.
- root_replication: Replicate number for an individual.
Variable names in Apase.csv
- PME: Fine-root phosphomonoesterase activity (µmol pNP g–1 hr-1)
- PDE: Fine-root phosphodiesterase activity (µmol pNP g–1 hr-1)
- PhT: Fine-root phytase activity (µmol PO4* *g–1 hr-1)
Variable names in Morphology.csv
- dia: root diamter (mm)
- RTD: root tissue density (g cm–3)
- SRL: specific root length (m g–1)