Contrasting effects of plant species traits and moisture on the decomposition of multiple litter fractions

Riggs, Charlotte E.; Hobbie, Sarah E.; Cavender‐Bares, Jeannine; Savage, Jessica; Wei, Xiaojing

doi:10.1007/s00442-015-3352-0

Cited by 17 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Soil mineral nitrogen is highly variable across time, thus the fact that we measured soil mineral nitrogen and soil microbial communities at different time points could confound comparisons between soil nitrogen and microbes. However, soil NH 4 was consistently different between wet and dry gardens across a whole year (Riggs et al., ), and thus, we assumed this justified the comparisons between microbial communities and mineral nitrogen in garden treatments. Consistent with this, soil nutrients were the strongest predictors of microbial community variation in our study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Water table gradients were found to correlate with soil chemistry at CCESR (Erlandson, Savage, Cavender‐Bares, & Peay, ), thus to account for these correlations, we included soil chemistry measurements for nitrate, ammonium, net nitrogen mineralization and pH, known to be important in soil microbial community ecology. Soil chemistry data were contributed by Riggs, Hobbie, Cavender‐Bares, Savage, and Wei () and collected in 2011. Although soil chemistry data were collected in a different year from soil microbial data, mineral nitrogen was measured using ion‐exchange resin bags in place from May to June, and soil pH was measured monthly during the growing season, then averaged for each garden.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hereafter, we use the term habitat specialization to refer to these differences in traits and distributions with respect to hydrology at CCESR. Savage, and Wei (2015) and collected in 2011.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Soil abiotic variables are more important than Salicaceae phylogeny or habitat specialization in determining soil microbial community structure

et al. 2018

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Predicting the outcome of interspecific interactions is a central goal in ecology. The diverse soil microbes that interact with plants are shaped by different aspects of plant identity, such as phylogenetic history and functional group. Species interactions may also be strongly shaped by abiotic environment, but there is mixed evidence on the relative importance of environment, plant identity and their interactions in shaping soil microbial communities. Using a multifactor, split-plot field experiment, we tested how hydrologic context, and three facets of Salicaceae plant identity-habitat specialization, phylogenetic distance and species identity-influence soil microbial community structure. Analysis of microbial community sequencing data with generalized dissimilarity models showed that abiotic environment explained up to 25% of variation in community composition of soil bacteria, fungi and archaea, while Salicaceae identity influenced <1% of the variation in community composition of soil microbial taxa. Multivariate linear models indicated that the influence of Salicaceae identity was small, but did contribute to differentiation of soil microbes within treatments. Moreover, results from a microbial niche breadth analysis show that soil microbes in wetlands have more specialized host associations than soil microbes in drier environments-showing that abiotic environment changed how plant identity correlated with soil microbial communities. This study demonstrates the predominance of major abiotic factors in shaping soil microbial community structure; the significance of abiotic context to biotic influence on soil microbes; and the utility of field experiments to disentangling the abiotic and biotic factors that are thought to be most essential for soil microbial communities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Soil abiotic variables are more important than Salicaceae phylogeny or habitat specialization in determining soil microbial community structure

et al. 2018

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“…The bags were placed 10 cm below the soil surface, extracted with 2 mol/L KCl, and analyzed for inorganic nitrogen using a colorimetric method (Riggs et al. ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Speci fically, plant-available soil nitrogen was measured using ion exchange resin bags at one randomly chosen pair of gardens per site during July-August in 2011. The bags were placed 10 cm below the soil surface, extracted with 2 mol/L KCl, and analyzed for inorganic nitrogen using a colorimetric method (Riggs et al 2015).…”

Section: Field Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An experimental test of fitness variation across a hydrologic gradient predicts willow and poplar species distributions

Wei

Savage

Riggs

et al. 2017

Ecology

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Environmental filtering is an important community assembly process influencing species distributions. Contrasting species abundance patterns along environmental gradients are commonly used to provide evidence for environmental filtering. However, the same abundance patterns may result from alternative or concurrent assembly processes. Experimental tests are an important means to decipher whether species fitness varies with environment, in the absence of dispersal constraints and biotic interactions, and to draw conclusions about the importance of environmental filtering in community assembly. We performed an experimental test of environmental filtering in 14 closely related willow and poplar species (family Salicaceae) by transplanting cuttings of each species into 40 common gardens established along a natural hydrologic gradient in the field, where competition was minimized and herbivory was controlled. We analyzed species fitness responses to the hydrologic environment based on cumulative growth and survival over two years using aster fitness models. We also examined variation in nine drought and flooding tolerance traits expected to contribute to performance based on a priori understanding of plant function in relation to water availability and stress. We found substantial evidence that environmental filtering along the hydrologic gradient played a critical role in determining species distributions. Fitness variation of each species in the field experiment was used to model their water table depth optima. These optima predicted 68% of the variation in species realized hydrologic niches based on peak abundance in naturally assembled communities in the surrounding region. Multiple traits associated with water transport efficiency and water stress tolerance were correlated with species hydrologic niches, but they did not necessarily covary with each other. As a consequence, species occupying similar hydrologic niches had different combinations of trait values. Moreover, individual traits were less phylogenetically conserved than species hydrologic niches and integrated water stress tolerance as determined by multiple traits. We conclude that differential fitness among species along the hydrologic gradient was the consequence of multiple traits associated with water transport and water stress tolerance, expressed in different combinations by different species. Varying environmental tolerance, in turn, played a critical role in driving niche segregation among close relatives along the hydrologic gradient.

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Functional diversity of leaf litter mixtures slows decomposition of labile but not recalcitrant carbon over two years

Grossman

Cavender‐Bares

Hobbie

2020

Ecological Monographs

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show abstract

Contrasting effects of plant species traits and moisture on the decomposition of multiple litter fractions

Cited by 17 publications

References 38 publications

Soil abiotic variables are more important than Salicaceae phylogeny or habitat specialization in determining soil microbial community structure

Soil abiotic variables are more important than Salicaceae phylogeny or habitat specialization in determining soil microbial community structure

An experimental test of fitness variation across a hydrologic gradient predicts willow and poplar species distributions

Functional diversity of leaf litter mixtures slows decomposition of labile but not recalcitrant carbon over two years

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