Soils are the largest reservoir of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. As a result, small deviations in soil carbon balance due to disturbance could significantly exacerbate or mitigate the build- up of the green- house gas CO2 in the atmosphere. Tropical ecosystems have experienced increasing amount of fires in recent years, which can be attributed to increasing agriculture and deforestation. Although some studies have been conducted to examine effects of fire on soil carbon storage of tropical ecosystems, the general trend is not known. It is therefore necessary to have proper understanding on the effect of fire on soil carbon, so as to direct future fire research, modeling and forest management policies. In this study we evaluated the central tendencies of the response of soil carbon to fire, using data extracted from peer reviewed papers. This review concentrated on data gotten from studies on ecosystems in the tropics. The categorical variables examined are fire type, forest type, recovery time after fire, as well as soil type.
Results/Conclusions
Preliminary results shows that fire decreased soil carbon with prescribed fire and increased soil carbon with wild fire.