A Pantropical Overview of Soils across Tropical Dry Forest Ecoregions

Pantropical variation in soils of the tropical dry forest (TDF) biome is enormously high but has been poorly characterized. To quantify global distribution TDF soil physical and chemical properties relation to climate geology, we produced a synthesis using 7500 points data with gridded fields representing lithologic, edaphic, climatic characteristics. Our analyses reveal that 75 ecoregions across five biogeographic domains (Afrotropical, Australasian, Indo-Malayan, Neotropical, Oceanian) varied strongly respect parent material: sediment (57%), metamorphic (22%), volcanic (13%), plutonic (7%). support remarkably variability suborders (32), Neotropical Oceanian realms being especially diverse. As whole, trend toward low fertility strong domains. Similarly, exhibited marked heterogeneity domains, depth varying by an order magnitude total organic C, N, P pools threefold. Organic C N pool sizes were negatively correlated mean annual temperature (MAT) positively precipitation (MAP). By contrast, was influenced both MAT MAP likely geochemistry, due variations material The results summarized here raise important questions as how control biogeochemical processes TDFs.