Tropical forests contribute about one-third to global net primary production (NPP), making them one of the most productive ecosystems on earth (Field et al. 1998; Roy and Saugier 2001; Malhi et al. 2011). However, estimates of ecosystem carbon (C) fluxes are still uncertain, due to limited understanding of belowground C dynamics. Fine roots, which are short-lived, non-woody and small in diameter (< 2 mm), are the most important component of belowground C dynamics and can contribute up to 27% of the annual NPP in tropical forest (Malhi et al. 2011). As tropical forests are threatened by forest degradation and deforestation...
The literature searches will be conducted in English. However, if only the title and the abstract are in English and the full text is in another language, it will be translated. No restriction of publication year will be applied.
A scoping study was conducted in January 2015 using Web of Knowledge (WoK), CAB Abstracts and Scopus to identify a comprehensive search strategy (Table 2). This resulted in 6376, 8346 and 8926 hits for the abovementioned databases, respectively. The search iteration was compared against a test library, which contained all references from Hertel and Leuschner (Hertel and Leuschner 2010) and Finér...