Patterns of biological nitrogen fixation during 60 000 years of forest development on volcanic soils from south-central Chile
Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) is a key process for ecosystem development on new substrates. On young volcanic substrates, the near absence of nitrogen (N) and the presence of available phosphorus (P) in the soil should stimulate the activity of diazotrophic, N-fixing, bacteria. Our main hypothesis is that ecosystem N gain through BNF is tightly coupled to the development of progressive and maximum phases of ecosystem succession, as element contents build up.