Tropical forests influence the global carbon cycle, yet our understanding of how these forests will respond to various global change drivers remains uncertain. Empirical evidence suggests that the ability to overcome nutrient limitations may limit tropical forest resilience. A deeper understanding of the processes and underlying mechanisms regulating nutrient acquisition and use in tropical forests can shed light on how these systems adapt in a changing world. Nutrient cycling significantly influences a range of processes, including gas exchange, ecosystem respiration, primary productivity, and carbon stocks above and below ground across tropical forests. Nevertheless, it is important to consider that soil nutrient concentrations, especially those derived from rock sources, vary substantially among tropical ecosystems.Tropical forests found on old, weathered soils tend to be limited by soil phosphorus availability and other rock-derived nutrients, whereas forests on younger soils or that have undergone land-use conversion tend to be limited by soil nitrogen availability. Even minor changes in ecosystem processes, driven by climate change and forest degradation, may have profound, yet poorly understood, consequences for the structure and functioning of tropical ecosystems. For the first time, multiple large-scale nutrient addition experiments exist within and across the three major tropical regions, creating an opportunity to compare experimental responses to nutrient manipulations into an integrative synthesis. In this proposed symposium, we aim to synthesize current knowledge in ecosystem responses across experiments and investigate integrative approaches that connect findings across these experiments. Ecological processes ranging from the leaf or root level to the ecosystem level are welcome. The symposium will compare, contrast, and identify common patterns in ecosystem processes related to changes in the nutrient strategies of plants. The comparison of processes affected by different nutrients and nutrient combinations will facilitate the development of a new paradigm for nutrient limitation in tropical forests and how these carbon-rich and biodiverse ecosystems will respond to global change drivers. Furthermore, this symposium will bring together an international network of scientists across biogeographical regions, career stages, and demographic groups to strengthen and complement the interdisciplinary research of NEXTropics.