Abstract
Understanding forest carbon sequestration is crucial for predicting and managing the carbon cycle, yet we lack evidence for whether, when and how the carbon sink in tropical forests recovering from land use change is nutrient limited. Here we show how the tropical forest recovery rate responds to experimental nutrient manipulation over a secondary succession gradient in a naturally recovering Central American landscape. Nutrient limitation of aboveground biomass accumulation shifts from strong nitrogen limitation in young forests to no evidence of nitrogen or phosphorus limitation in older secondary or mature forests. Nitrogen addition increases aboveground biomass accumulation by 95% in recently abandoned pasture and 48% in 10-year-old forests. Conversely, we observe no influence of nitrogen on older forests and no evidence of phosphorus limitation at any stage. If our findings of nitrogen limitation extend to young tropical forests globally, nitrogen could prevent the sequestration of 0.69 (0.47-0.84) Gt CO(2) each year.