Summary1. Plant-soil feedbacks is becoming an important concept for explaining vegetation dynamics, the invasiveness of introduced exotic species in new habitats and how terrestrial ecosystems respond to global land use and climate change. Using a new conceptual model, we show how critical alterations in plant-soil feedback interactions can change the assemblage of plant communities. We highlight recent advances, define terms and identify future challenges in this area of research and discuss how variations in strengths and directions of plant-soil feedbacks can explain succession, invasion, response to climate warming and diversity-productivity relationships. 2. While there has been a rapid increase in understanding the biological, chemical and physical mechanisms and their interdependencies underlying plant-soil feedback interactions, further progress is to be expected from applying new experimental techniques and technologies, linking empirical studies to modelling and field-based studies that can include plant-soil feedback interactions on longer time scales that also include long-term processes such as litter decomposition and mineralization. 3. Significant progress has also been made in analysing consequences of plant-soil feedbacks for biodiversity-functioning relationships, plant fitness and selection. 4. To further integrate plant-soil feedbacks into ecological theory, it will be important to determine where and how observed patterns may be generalized, and how they may influence evolution. 5. Synthesis. Gaining a greater understanding of plant-soil feedbacks and underlying mechanisms is improving our ability to predict consequences of these interactions for plant community composition and productivity under a variety of conditions. Future research will enable better prediction and mitigation of the consequences of human-induced global changes, improve efforts of restoration and conservation and promote sustainable provision of ecosystem services in a rapidly changing world.
Summary 1.It is increasingly acknowledged that plant-soil feedbacks may play an important role in driving the composition of plant communities and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. However, the mechanistic understanding of plant-soil feedbacks, as well as their roles in natural ecosystems in proportion to other possible drivers, is still in its infancy. Such knowledge will enhance our capacity to determine the contribution of plant-soil feedback to community and ecosystem responses under global environmental change. 2. Here, we review how plant-soil feedbacks may develop under extreme drought and precipitation events, CO 2 and nitrogen enrichment, temperature increase, land use change and plant species loss vs. gain. We present a framework for opening the 'black box of soil' considering the responses of the various biotic components (enemies, symbionts and decomposers) of plant-soil feedback to the global environmental changes, and we discuss how to integrate these components to understand and predict the net effects of plant-soil feedbacks under the various scenarios of change. 3. To gain an understanding of how plant-soil feedback plays out in realistic settings, we also use the framework to discuss its interaction with other drivers of plant community composition, including competition, facilitation, herbivory, and soil physical and chemical properties. 4. We conclude that understanding the role that plant-soil feedback plays in shaping the responses of plant community composition and ecosystem processes to global environmental changes requires unravelling the individual contributions of enemies, symbionts and decomposers. These biotic factors may show different response rates and strengths, thereby resulting in different net magnitudes and directions of plant-soil feedbacks under various scenarios of global change. We also need tests of plant-soil feedback under more realistic conditions to determine its contribution to changes in patterns and processes in the field, both at ecologically and evolutionary relevant time-scales.
Root herbivory can greatly affect the performance of aboveground insects via changes in plant chemistry. These interactions have been studied extensively in experiments where aboveground and belowground insects were feeding on the same plant. However, little is known about how aboveground and belowground organisms interact when they feed on plant individuals that grow after each other in the same soil. We show that feeding by aboveground and belowground insect herbivores on ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris) plants exert unique soil legacy effects, via herbivore-induced changes in the composition of soil fungi. These changes in the soil biota induced by aboveground and belowground herbivores of preceding plants greatly influenced the pyrrolizidine alkaloid content, biomass and aboveground multitrophic interactions of succeeding plants. We conclude that plant-mediated interactions between aboveground and belowground insects are also important when they do not feed simultaneously on the same plant.
Summary1. Legacy effects of plant influences on abiotic and biotic soil properties can result in priority effects that influence the structure and composition of plant communities. To better understand the role of these plant-soil interactions, here we expand the concept of plant-soil feedbacks from a withinspecies approach (intraspecific plant-soil feedback) to a between-species approach (interspecific plant-soil interactions). 2. In a greenhouse experiment, we tested how the early successional Jacobaea vulgaris affects its own performance and the performance of 30 co-occurring plant species via changes in abiotic and biotic soil conditions. In addition, we examined the reciprocal effect of the co-occurring species on J. vulgaris. 3. Our study had three important results. First, J. vulgaris exhibits strong negative plant-soil feedback. Secondly, there were large differences among the co-occurring species in interspecific plantsoil effects on J. vulgaris growth. Approximately, half the species reduced J. vulgaris performance, whereas the other half had no effect. Thirdly, soil conditioned by J. vulgaris had a positive or neutral effect on the growth of the co-occurring species. 4. To test the soil effects of entire plant communities, in 10 old-fields that differed in time since abandonment we recorded the identity of all plants surrounding J. vulgaris individuals. We calculated the weighted soil effect of this community on J. vulgaris and the reciprocal effect of J. vulgaris on the community. There was a positive linear relationship between time since abandonment and the weighted feedback effect of J. vulgaris on the plant community. 5. We suggest three mechanisms how the legacy of plant-soil interactions may enhance the rate of succession through priority effects: early successional plant species exert negative plant-soil feedback; co-occurring plant species cause negative interspecific plant-soil effects to the early successional species; and the early successional species have overall positive interspecific plant-soil effects on the co-occurring plant species. 6. Synthesis. The performance of an early successional species can be reduced directly by the legacy effects of intraspecific plant-soil feedback, as well as indirectly by the legacy effects of both intraand interspecific plant-soil interactions. These intra-and interspecific plant-soil interactions can prioritize transitions of plant species in plant communities.
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