Multi‐dimensionality as a path forward in plant‐soil feedback research

Gundale, Michael J.; Kardol, Paul

doi:10.1111/1365-2745.13679

Cited by 45 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 216 publications

(356 reference statements)

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“…Together, these findings stress the need to understand soil legacy effects in the multi-disciplinary framework that drive plant growth in natural plant communities, including both abiotic and biotic effects, plant life-history strategies as well as time and spatial scales relevant the studied plant community processes (Gundale & Kardol, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Instead, effects were related to subtle differences in soil nutrient availability, which concurs with our previous findings of root ingrowth and resource utilisation of the plant species surrounding the soil patches (in ‘t Zandt et al, 2020). Together, these findings stress the need to understand soil legacy effects in the multi‐disciplinary framework that drive plant growth in natural plant communities, including both abiotic and biotic effects, plant life‐history strategies as well as time and spatial scales relevant to the studied plant community processes (Gundale & Kardol, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Plant life‐history traits rather than soil legacies determine colonisation of soil patches in a multi‐species grassland

et al. 2022

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Interactions between plants and soil biota are increasingly shown to play critical roles in plant species coexistence processes. Plant species coexistence is thought to be promoted via biotic legacies that plant species leave behind in the soil after a plant disappears. These soil legacies are hypothesised to supress colonisation success when the preceding plant is of the same species, that is, when a plant species encounters its own, species‐specific soil antagonists. However, colonisation of vacant spots in plant communities is in the first place determined by the ability of plants to reach such vacant locations. We currently lack an understanding of the explicit role of soil legacy effects and their relative contribution to colonisation processes in plant communities consisting of plant species inherently differing in colonisation ability. In experimental, outdoor plant communities consisting of eight grassland species, we tested the effect of five differently conditioned soil patches on plant species colonisation success over three consecutive growing seasons. We found that colonisation success was largely determined by the species' reproductive strategy, lateral spread and growth rate, and not by the plant species that conditioned the soil patch. Fast spreading, clonal plant species reached the soil patches first and initially attained the highest biomass inside the patch. One year later, slower spreading plant species colonised the patch via seedlings. Species with intrinsically high growth rates attained the highest biomass, decreasing biomass of the initial colonisers. While subtle differences between conditioned soil patches did occur, these were not strong enough to overcome the inherent differences in colonisation ability between the various plant species. Synthesis. Our results reject the hypothesis that colonisation of vacant soil patches in plant communities is strongly affected by the legacy that is left behind by the preceding plant species. Instead, plant species life‐history strategy plays a prominent role, driving sequential plant species replacements. Based on our results and recent accounts in literature we present a conceptual model for local cyclic dynamics in grassland communities, where soil legacy plays a role in affecting the performance of established plant species rather than colonisation of vacant patches.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Plant life‐history traits rather than soil legacies determine colonisation of soil patches in a multi‐species grassland

et al. 2022

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“…Exploring how variation in abiotic conditions and functional traits of plant and soil microorganisms contribute to this heterogeneity is a key next step (26)(27)(28).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A quantitative synthesis of soil microbial effects on plant species coexistence

Yan

Levine

Kandlikar

2022

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Significance Understanding the processes that maintain plant diversity is a key goal in ecology. Many previous studies have shown that soil microbes can generate stabilizing or destabilizing feedback loops that drive either plant species coexistence or monodominance. However, theory shows that microbial controls over plant coexistence also arise through microbially mediated competitive imbalances, which have been largely neglected. Using data from 50 studies, we found that soil microbes affect plant dynamics primarily by generating competitive fitness differences rather than stabilizing or destabilizing feedbacks. Consequently, in the absence of other competitive asymmetries among plants, soil microbes are predicted to drive species exclusion more than coexistence. These results underscore the need for measuring competitive fitness differences when evaluating microbial controls over plant coexistence.

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“…On the other hand, the missed mutualisms hypothesis predicts that alien plants suffer from the absence or reduced numbers of suitable mutualistic partners, such as arbuscular mycorrhiza fungus (AMF; 16 . Furthermore, the environmental context (e.g., resource availability) may alter the relative contribution of pathogens versus mutualists to plant performance, and thus shape plant-species coexistence 17 . Following this logic, we expect that fluctuations in resource availability should not only directly but also indirectly -through changes in soilmicrobial communities-influence invasion success of alien plants into native communities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil microbes mediate the effects of environmental variability on plant invasion

Zhang

Chang

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Many studies indicate that increases in resource variability promote plant invasion. However, it remains unknown to what extent these effects might indirectly be mediated by other organisms. To test this, we grew eight alien species in pot-mesocosms with five different native communities under eight combinations of two nutrient-availability, two nutrient-fluctuation and two soil-microbe treatments. We found that when plants grew in sterilized soil, nutrient fluctuation promoted the dominance of alien plants under low nutrient availability, whereas its effect was minimal under high nutrient availability. However, the opposite pattern was found when plants grew in living soil. Analysis of the soil microbial community suggests that this might reflect that nutrient fluctuation strongly increased the soil fungal pathogen diversity under high nutrient availability, but slightly decreased it under low nutrient availability. Our findings indicate that besides its direct influence, environmental variability could also indirectly affect plant invasion via changes in soil-microbial communities.

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Multi‐dimensionality as a path forward in plant‐soil feedback research

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 45 publications

References 216 publications

Plant life‐history traits rather than soil legacies determine colonisation of soil patches in a multi‐species grassland

Plant life‐history traits rather than soil legacies determine colonisation of soil patches in a multi‐species grassland

A quantitative synthesis of soil microbial effects on plant species coexistence

Soil microbes mediate the effects of environmental variability on plant invasion

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