The importance of species phylogenetic relationships and species traits for the intensity of plant‐soil feedback

Abstract

Plant‐soil feedback (PSF) represents an important process affecting natural plant communities. While many previous studies demonstrated the variation in the intensity of PSF between species, the mechanisms driving these differences are still largely unexplored. The aim of the study was to explore the importance of species traits and species phylogenetic relationships on the intensity of plant‐soil feedback. To do this we used a classical design to test plant soil feedback, i.e., a two‐phase experiment consisting of conditioning and cultivation phase. In the conditioning phase, we used 30 different species from the Carduoidea subfamily of Asteraceae and conditioned soil by each of these species separately. In the cultivation phase, we observed growth of four of these species in all the soils. We predict that the intensity of PSF will be more intense between plants which are more closely related than between unrelated species. As an alternative, we explore the possibility that the intensity of PFS will be a function of plant traits related to nutrient acquisition by the plant. The intensity of feedback was significantly dependent on phylogeny in several cases indicating that more closely related species show more similar feedback effects. The feedback response was also affected by the chemical composition of the cultivated soil. In addition, the intensity of feedback was affected by height of the cultivating species and its ability to accumulate nitrogen and phosphorus in their leaves. While in most of these cases there is an indication that plants grow better in soils cultivated by smaller species accumulating less nutrients, in some cases the pattern in opposite. The direction and intensity of plant‐soil feedback also strongly differed between life stages with seedling number commonly showing a response which was opposite to the response of the adults. Synthesis: The results supported our expectation that plant‐soil feedback may be affected by species phylogenetic relationships. In addition, we have shown that also plant traits and the effect of the conditioning plant on soil chemistry may be useful factors allowing us to predict the intensity of plant‐soil feedback in the system.

Plant soil feedback strength in relation to large‐scale plant rarity and phylogenetic relatedness

“…3A). Previous studies testing for this pattern showed contrasting results (Liu et al 2012, Mehrabi and Tuck 2015, M€ unzbergov a and Surinov a 2015, Fitzpatrick et al 2017). It is plausible that both increased pathogen sharing between close relatives, and increased mutualist sharing between distant relatives, causes a phylogenetic signal in plant-soil feedback.…”

“…It is plausible that both increased pathogen sharing between close relatives, and increased mutualist sharing between distant relatives, causes a phylogenetic signal in plant-soil feedback. Previous studies testing for this pattern showed contrasting results (Liu et al 2012, Mehrabi and Tuck 2015, M€ unzbergov a and Surinov a 2015, Fitzpatrick et al 2017). Our approach of growing each plant on soils cultured by heterospecifics varying in phylogenetic distance to the target, may have more power to detect a phylogenetic signal in host range and studies on leaf pathogens and insect herbivores have used a similar approach to demonstrate phylogenetic signal in host range (Novotny andBasset 2005, Gilbert andWebb 2007).…”

Integrated metabolic strategy: A framework for predicting the evolution of carbon‐water tradeoffs within plant clades

“…A lack of phylogenetic signal in δ 13 C could be indicative of differential trait combinations among species to achieve an overall carbon metabolism that is not necessarily phylogenetically conserved, despite conservatism in biochemical traits such as leaf nitrogen and Vc max . Leaf nitrogen has been reported to have phylogenetic signal for Magnoliaceae species (Liu et al, 2015) but not across the Ericaceae (Goud & Sparks, 2018) or closely related Asteraceae (Münzbergová & Šurinová, 2015). We previously used discrete foliar traits to characterize Asclepias habitat affiliations, with hairy & waxy species being from drier environments than glabrous species (Agrawal, Fishbein, Jetter, et al, 2009b).…”

Phylogenetic trait conservatism predicts patterns of plant‐soil feedback

“…While studies have begun to uncover the variable role of evolutionary history in influencing PSF (Anacker et al 2014, Fitzpatrick et al 2017), a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying phylogenetic patterns in PSF is critical to advancing the field. Recent work suggests that evolutionary history can sometimes predict variable PSF (Liu et al 2012, Anacker et al 2014, M€ unzbergov a and Surinov a 2015, Kempel et al 2018, but there are also instances where it may not (Mehrabi and Tuck 2015, Fitzpatrick et al 2017. Such differences likely relate to varying degrees of phylogenetic trait conservatism (the tendency of lineages to retain traits through speciation events; Crisp and Cook 2012) in plant traits related to PSF.…”