Litter-driven feedbacks influence plant colonization of a high elevation early successional ecosystem

Mesquita, Clifton P. Bueno de; Schmidt, Steven K.; Suding, Katharine N.

doi:10.1007/s11104-019-04242-3

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 85 publications

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“…in short-term PSF experiments. Other studies have also reported no or even negative effect of litter addition on plant growth (Dorrepaal et al 2007, Coq et al 2012, Zhang et al 2016, de Mesquita et al 2019, Manrubia et al 2020. The increase in soil nutrient levels in our study was relatively small and thus probably not sufficient to cause a significant change in plant performance.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 69%

“…Despite the general assumption that shoot litter addition causes positive PSF due to an increase in available nutrients (Bennett and Klironomos 2019), results such as ours are not unique in short‐term PSF experiments. Other studies have also reported no or even negative effect of litter addition on plant growth (Dorrepaal et al 2007, Coq et al 2012, Zhang et al 2016, de Mesquita et al 2019, Manrubia et al 2020). The increase in soil nutrient levels in our study was relatively small and thus probably not sufficient to cause a significant change in plant performance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

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Effects of soil conditioning, root and shoot litter addition interact to determine the intensity of plant–soil feedback

Florianová

Dostálek

Münzbergová

2022

Oikos

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Plant-soil feedback (PSF) is recognized as an important mechanism shaping plant communities and determining plant abundance and coexistence. Under natural conditions, plants affect the outcome of plant-soil interactions simultaneously by conditioning the soil by living roots and by litter inputs into the soil. However, most experimental studies only focus on one of the pathways, which limits our understanding of PSF in the field.Here, we simultaneously explored the effect of soil conditioning by living roots and of root and shoot litter addition on the performance of seven Impatiens species grown in a two-phase garden experiment.Soil conditioning negatively affected plant performance, which was at least partly explained by nutrient depletion. Root litter addition affected plant performance negatively and the results suggest that biotic effects such as pathogen transmission via the root litter played a role. The effects of root litter addition were more pronounced in control soil which, contrary to the conditioned soil, supposedly did not accumulate pathogens during the conditioning phase. Shoot litter addition increased soil nutrient levels, but had no impact on plant performance. However, presence of shoot litter aggravated the negative effects of root litter, probably due to increased amounts of nutrients available for soil biota and thus their faster growth and intensified effect on the plants.Overall, our study suggests that root and shoot litter have contrasting roles in plantsoil interactions and understanding their separate and interactive effects together with effects of soil conditioning is crucial for assessing the complexity of PSF.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 69%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Effects of soil conditioning, root and shoot litter addition interact to determine the intensity of plant–soil feedback

Florianová

Dostálek

Münzbergová

2022

Oikos

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“…Species-specific effects on the PLSF pathway Our fourth hypothesis was partially supported because there were some significant main and interactive effects of herbivory, litter type and response species identity on plant growth. This finding supports other work showing species-specific litter feedback effects (Bueno de Mesquita et al 2019;Coq et al 2012). Here, for example, L. perenne showed reduced root growth in response to shoot litter that had been exposed to above-belowground herbivory versus only belowground herbivory.…”

Section: Herbivory Effects On the Plsf Pathwaysupporting

confidence: 93%

Plant-litter-soil feedbacks in common grass species are slightly negative and only marginally modified by litter exposed to insect herbivory

et al. 2022

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Purpose Insect herbivory affects plant growth, nutrient and secondary metabolite concentrations and litter quality. Changes to litter quality due to insect herbivory can alter decomposition, with knock on effects for plant growth mediated through the plant-litter-soil feedback pathway. Methods Using a multi-phase glasshouse experiment, we tested how changes in shoot and root litter quality of fast- and slow-growing grass caused by insect herbivores affect the performance of response plants in the soil in which the litter decomposed. Results We found that insect herbivory resulted in marginal changes to litter quality and did not affect growth when plants were grown with fast- versus slow-growing litter. Overall, presence of litter resulted in reduced root and shoot growth and this effect was significantly more negative in shoots versus roots. However, this effect was minimal, with a loss of c. 1.4% and 3.1% dry weight biomass in roots versus shoots, respectively. Further, shoot litter exposed to insect herbivory interacted with response plant identity to affect root growth. Conclusions Our results suggest that whether litter originates from plant tissues exposed to insect herbivory or not and its interaction with fast- versus slow-growing grasses is of little importance, but species-specific responses to herbivory-conditioned litter can occur. Taken collectively, the overall role of the plant-litter-soil feedback pathway, as well as its interaction with insect herbivory, is unlikely to affect broader ecosystem processes in this system.

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“…Although our experiment focused on earlier snowmelt and longer growing seasons, climate change is also causing warmer summers characterized by greater evapotranspiration rates and soil moisture deficits, which can interact with other factors such as nutrient deposition to affect vegetation (Farrer et al 2015, Remke et al 2015). Future work should seek to understand plant–microbe interactions in the context of range shifts (Bueno de Mesquita et al 2019), and study the role of multiple climatic and resource variables. Another interesting avenue for future research is to investigate the role of seed‐borne microbes in facilitating plant establishment in new ranges.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Growing‐season length and soil microbes influence the performance of a generalist bunchgrass beyond its current range

Mesquita

Sartwell

Schmidt

et al. 2020

Ecology

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As organisms shift their geographic distributions in response to climate change, biotic interactions have emerged as an important factor driving the rate and success of range expansions. Plant–microbe interactions are an understudied but potentially important factor governing plant range shifts. We studied the distribution and function of microbes present in high‐elevation unvegetated soils, areas that plants are colonizing as climate warms, snow melts earlier, and the summer growing season lengthens. Using a manipulative snowpack and microbial inoculation transplant experiment, we tested the hypothesis that growing‐season length and microbial community composition interact to control plant elevational range shifts. We predicted that a lengthening growing season combined with dispersal to patches of soils with more mutualistic microbes and fewer pathogenic microbes would facilitate plant survival and growth in previously unvegetated areas. We identified negative effects on survival of the common alpine bunchgrass Deschampsia cespitosa in both short and long growing seasons, suggesting an optimal growing‐season length for plant survival in this system that balances time for growth with soil moisture levels. Importantly, growing‐season length and microbes interacted to affect plant survival and growth, such that microbial community composition increased in importance in suboptimal growing‐season lengths. Further, plants grown with microbes from unvegetated soils grew as well or better than plants grown with microbes from vegetated soils. These results suggest that the rate and spatial extent of plant colonization of unvegetated soils in mountainous areas experiencing climate change could depend on both growing‐season length and soil microbial community composition, with microbes potentially playing more important roles as growing seasons lengthen.

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Litter-driven feedbacks influence plant colonization of a high elevation early successional ecosystem

Cited by 14 publications

References 85 publications

Effects of soil conditioning, root and shoot litter addition interact to determine the intensity of plant–soil feedback

Effects of soil conditioning, root and shoot litter addition interact to determine the intensity of plant–soil feedback

Plant-litter-soil feedbacks in common grass species are slightly negative and only marginally modified by litter exposed to insect herbivory

Growing‐season length and soil microbes influence the performance of a generalist bunchgrass beyond its current range

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