Impact of Global Change on Soil Carbon Storage and Biogeochemical Cycles in Tropical Forest Ecosystems

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last few years, responses of tropical forests to global change have received increasing attention, underlying the sensitivity of this ecosystem to temperature rise, precipitation regime modifications and increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂). Furthermore, the extremely high tropical tree diversity also showed a large panel of responses to global change. However, less attention was done on how global change, i.e., increased of drought, temperature, CO₂ and nitrogen (N) deposition, influences the belowground compartment, while it shows a main role in carbon (C) sink and biogeochemical cycles. In light of the recent COP21 Paris Agreement, it is essential to better understand the impacts of global change on soil C stock and storage to determine the level of climate mitigation required to achieve the agreed temperature goals. Tropical forests are currently subject to different antagonist processes which disrupt the soil C storage and alter the soil greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes, creating a potential feedback mechanism for climate change.

The articles in this Special Issue will contribute to increasing our knowledge on the main environmental drivers, and their interactions, that are behind tropical forest soil functioning, including microorganism activities, stoichiometry diversity, soil–plant interactions and carbon storage mechanisms.

Dr. Clément Stahl
Dr. Laetitia Brechet
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.