ABSTRACT
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Although tropical soil systems represent an important part of the world’s diversity of soil
ecosystems, they have in the past received less scientific attention than temperate zone
soils. Soil systems in both categories operate according to the same principles, but climatic
differences have put them on divergent paths. Neither should be taken as a norm from
which the other deviates. In recent years, research on tropical soil systems has been greatly
expanding, helping us to understand better the general principles according to which soil
systems function.
