New research from the Amazon PyroCarbon project, led by Cristian Montes-Pulido with collaborators including Ted Feldpausch (University of Exeter), reveals that soils in high-elevation tropical forests of the Colombian Andes store exceptionally high levels of carbon — much of it locked away as pyrogenic carbon from ancient and recent fires.
The study, published in Global Change Biology, shows that both climate and soil type determine how much carbon accumulates and persists across elevation and land-use gradients. Clay-rich soils at higher elevations retain more mineral-associated organic carbon and pyrogenic carbon, even under land-use change.
Read the full University of Exeter press release: High-elevation tropical forest soils in Colombian Andes are rich in carbon from past fires
Paper: Montes-Pulido, C. R., Bird, M., da Silva Carvalho, L., Serrano, J. C., Quesada, C. A. & Feldpausch, T. R. (2025). Climatic and edaphic drivers of soil organic carbon and pyrogenic carbon stocks across elevation and land-use gradients. Global Change Biology, 31(7). doi: 10.1111/gcb.70135