Plant performance is determined by the balance of intra‐ and interspecific neighbors within an individual's zone of influence. If individuals interact over smaller scales than the scales at which communities are measured, then altering neighborhood interactions may fundamentally affect community responses. These interactions can be altered by changing the number (species richness), abundances (species evenness), and positions (species pattern) of the resident plant species, and we aimed to test whether aggregating species at planting would alter effects of species richness and evenness on biomass production at a common scale of observation in grasslands. We varied plant species richness (2, 4, or 8 species and monocultures), evenness (0.64, 0.8, or 1.0), and pattern (planted randomly or aggregated in groups of four individuals) within 1 × 1 m plots established with transplants from a pool of 16 tallgrass prairie species and assessed plot‐scale biomass production and diversity over the first three growing seasons. As expected, more species‐rich plots produced more biomass by the end of the third growing season, an effect associated with a shift from selection to complementarity effects over time. Aggregating conspecifics at a 0.25‐m scale marginally reduced biomass production across all treatments and increased diversity in the most even plots, but did not alter biodiversity effects or richness–productivity relationships. Results support the hypothesis that fine‐scale species aggregation affects diversity by promoting species coexistence in this system. However, results indicate that inherent changes in species neighborhood relationships along grassland diversity gradients may only minimally affect community (meter) – scale responses among similarly designed biodiversity–ecosystem function studies. Given that species varied in their responses to local aggregation, it may be possible to use such species‐specific results to spatially design larger‐scale grassland communities to achieve desired diversity and productivity responses.
The use of perennial crop species in agricultural systems may increase ecosystem services and sustainability. Because soil microbial communities play a major role in many processes on which ecosystem services and sustainability depend, characterization of soil community structure in novel perennial crop systems is necessary to understand potential shifts in function and crop responses. Here, we characterized soil fungal community composition at two depths (0-10 and 10-30 cm) in replicated, long-term plots containing one of three different cropping systems: a tilled three-crop rotation of annual crops, a novel perennial crop monoculture (Intermediate wheatgrass, which produces the grain Kernza ® ), and a native prairie reconstruction. The overall fungal community was similar under the perennial monoculture and native vegetation, but both were distinct from those in annual agriculture. The mutualist and saprotrophic community subsets mirrored differences of the overall community, but pathogens were similar among cropping systems. Depth structured overall communities as well as each functional group subset. These results reinforce studies showing strong effects of tillage and sampling depth on soil community structure and suggest plant species diversity may play a weaker role. Similarities in the overall and functional fungal communities between the perennial monoculture and native vegetation suggest Kernza ® cropping systems have the potential to mimic reconstructed natural systems. OPEN ACCESSCitation: McKenna TP, Crews TE, Kemp L, Sikes BA (2020) Community structure of soil fungi in a novel perennial crop monoculture, annual agriculture, and native prairie reconstruction. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0228202. https://doi.org/10.
Because the distances over which plants interact can be relatively short, the extent to which individuals interact with conspecific and heterospecific neighbors during the initial phases of grassland reconstruction may affect local species diversity and invasibility. To determine whether aggregating conspecific individuals at seeding (while controlling seed density) can be used as a technique to improve tallgrass prairie establishment, we used a greenhouse experiment with four native tallgrass prairie species (functional diversity controlled) seeded at three evenness levels into potting soil. We randomly assigned species to one (random) or a group of four (aggregated) fixed locations in an 8 × 8 grid (16 cm × 16 cm with 2 cm spacing) and subsequently seeded half of the communities with the non-native cool-season grass intermediate wheatgrass (Thinopyrum intermedium). After the equivalent of one growing season (four months), aggregated communities were more diverse and had a marginally greater proportion of legumes than random communities. Initial species pattern did not affect community invasibility, but invaded communities were less diverse and more dominated by the native cool-season grasses. Our results suggest that some tallgrass prairie species may benefit from initial conspecific aggregation and confirm that interactions that determine diversity, but not necessarily invasibility, during grassland establishment occur over short (cm-scale) distances. Aggregating seeds of conspecific species within the grassland reconstruction process may be used as a technique to improve diversity in grassland reconstruction sites and future projects need to consider whether these initial responses can be replicated and maintained within field-scale projects.
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