Ecosystem Services, Biodiversity and Environmental Change in a Tropical Mountain Ecosystem of South Ecuador

Abstract

Carbon storage and sequestration both are major ecosystem services provided by forests. The NUMEX (Ecuadorian NUtrient Manipulation EXperiment) study aims to identify the underlying mechanisms for the variation of these services as affected by future changes in nutrient availability. The ongoing experiment is being conducted in southern Ecuador to improve our understanding of the effects of continuous moderate N and P addition to tropical montane forest ecosystems. This chapter summarizes the short-term effects of nutrient addition evident at the end of the experiment’s first year. The rapid responses of the studied Andean montane forests to N and P addition observed at this early stage of the experiment illustrate the vulnerability of the forests to higher nutrient deposition.