Greater root phosphatase activity of tropical trees at low phosphorus despite strong variation among species

Soil phosphorus (P) availability in lowland tropical rainforests influences the distribution and growth of tropical tree species. Determining the P‐acquisition strategies of tropical tree species could therefore yield insight into patterns of tree β‐diversity across edaphic gradients. In particular, the synthesis of root phosphatases is likely to be of significance given that organic P represents a large pool of potentially available P in tropical forest soils. It has also been suggested that a high root phosphatase activity in putative nitrogen (N) ‐fixing legumes might explain their high abundance in lowland neotropical forests under low P supply. Here, we measured phosphomonoesterase (PME) activity on the first three root orders of co‐occurring tropical tree species differing in their N‐fixation capacity, growing on soils of contrasting P availability in Panama. Our results show that root PME activity was higher on average in P‐poor than in P‐rich soils, but that local variation in PME activity among co‐occurring species within a site was larger than that explained by differences in soil P across sites. Legumes expressed higher PME activity than nonlegumes, but nodulated legumes (i.e., actively fixing nitrogen) did not differ from legumes without nodules, indicating that PME activity is unrelated to N fixation. Finally, PME activity declined with increasing root order, but the magnitude of the decline varied markedly among species, highlighting the importance of classifying fine roots into functional groups prior to measuring root traits. Our results support the hypothesis that low‐P promotes a high root PME activity, although the high local variation in this trait among co‐occurring species points toward a high functional diversity in P‐acquisition strategies within an individual community.