Soil Communities Promote Temporal Stability and Species Asynchrony in Experimental Grassland Communities

PloS One
Sarah PellkoferCameron Wagg

Abstract

Over the past two decades many studies have demonstrated that plant species diversity promotes primary productivity and stability in grassland ecosystems. Additionally, soil community characteristics have also been shown to influence the productivity and composition of plant communities, yet little is known about whether soil communities also play a role in stabilizing the productivity of an ecosystem. Here we use microcosms to assess the effects of the presence of soil communities on plant community dynamics and stability over a one-year time span. Microcosms were filled with sterilized soil and inoculated with either unaltered field soil or field soil sterilized to eliminate the naturally occurring soil biota. Eliminating the naturally occurring soil biota not only resulted in lower plant productivity, and reduced plant species diversity, and evenness, but also destabilized the net aboveground productivity of the plant communities over time, which was largely driven by changes in abundance of the dominant grass Lolium perenne. In contrast, the grass and legumes contributed more to net aboveground productivity of the plant communities in microcosms where soil biota had been inoculated. Additionally, the forbs exhibited compens...Continue Reading

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Citations

May 8, 2019·Ecology·Y Anny ChungJennifer A Rudgers

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
soil treatments

Software Mentioned

R package ‘ vegan
lmerTest
lme4
R
ASReml

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