The relative importance of plant-soil feedbacks for plant-species performance increases with decreasing intensity of herbivory

Heinze, Johannes; Simons, Nadja K.; Seibold, Sebastian; Wacker, Alexander; Weithoff, Guntram; Goßner, Martin M.; Prati, Daniel; Bezemer, T. Martijn; Joshi, Jasmin

doi:10.1007/s00442-019-04442-9

Cited by 14 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…To investigate the impact of aboveground insect herbivory on PSFs of the different plant origins we performed a herbivoryexclusion treatment in accordance with Heinze and Joshi (2018) and Heinze et al (2019). This herbivore-exclusion treatment was applied on all six experimental sites.…”

Section: Herbivory Treatmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further studies on PSFs might incorporate other important factors affecting plant growth and soil biota such as abiotic soil conditions that are influenced by land use (Alt et al, 2011;Birkhofer et al, 2012). However, we included one important environmental factor-aboveground insect herbivory-in our experiment that was shown to affect the outcome of PSFs under field conditions (Heinze and Joshi, 2018), depending on the intensity of herbivory (Heinze et al, 2019).…”

Section: Psfs Without Aboveground Herbivoresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hence, there is a need to perform PSF experiments under field conditions (Van der Putten et al, 2016), where biotic interactions, such as herbivory, are present. Under such natural conditions recent research found, for example, that aboveground insect herbivory modulated the outcome of PSFs (Heinze and Joshi, 2018) and that the PSF response increased with the intensity of herbivory (Heinze et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Plant-Soil Feedbacks of Plantago lanceolata in the Field Depend on Plant Origin and Herbivory

et al. 2019

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Soil biota involved in plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) have an impact on the growth of plant individuals. So far, studies investigating the role of soil-biota mediated PSFs in plant performance were mostly performed in greenhouses and focused predominantly on species differences, whereas the contribution of PSFs to plant performance under field conditions and intraspecific variation in PSFs among plant populations remain poorly investigated. Here, we performed a PSF pot experiment under field conditions to study intraspecific variation in plant responses to soil biota. We used seeds from multiple seed families of Plantago lanceolata L. together with Plantago-conditioned soils from contrasting habitats (three non-fertilized pastures vs. three fertilized mown pastures) to test whether plants show a positive or negative response to their parental soil biota. We furthermore tested whether these PSFs depend on abiotic habitat factors and insect herbivory. To this end, we reciprocally transplanted plants and their soil biota between the two habitat types and excluded aboveground herbivores from half of the plants, respectively. When grown without herbivores, plants from both habitat types showed similar and neutral PSFs independently of the transplant site. In contrast, in the presence of herbivores, PSFs for plants from non-fertilized pastures were negative in both habitats (i.e., plants performed better when they grew with foreign soil biota), whereas PSFs for plants from fertilized mown-pastures remained neutral. Our results suggest that soil biota alone might only play a minor role for performance of P. lanceolata and that the outcome of soil-biota mediated PSFs is modulated by effects of herbivores in different habitats.

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Section: Herbivory Treatmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Psfs Without Aboveground Herbivoresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Plant-Soil Feedbacks of Plantago lanceolata in the Field Depend on Plant Origin and Herbivory

et al. 2019

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“…preferentially attack larger, healthier seedlings (Price, 1991;Blaisdell et al, 2015), or otherwise interact with PSF in affecting plant performance (Bennett and Klironomos, 2019;Heinze et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Field studies are essential for evaluating the importance of PSF in the presence of other prevalent ecological processes affecting a species' performance, such as plant-plant competition and herbivory (Casper and Castelli, 2007;Heinze and Joshi, 2017). Both competition and herbivory have the potential to augment or reduce effects of PSF, based on the strength of these other processes and whether their effect on plant performance is in the same or opposite direction as that of PSF (Casper and Castelli, 2007;Lekberg et al, 2018;Heinze et al, 2019). Conversely, PSF effects on plant performance could indirectly alter a plant's susceptibility to herbivory based on information that herbivory levels can vary with mycorrhizal status (Gehring and Bennett, 2009;Koricheva et al, 2009), leaf nutritional quality (Ayres et al, 1997), or plant vigor (Cornelissen et al, 2008), and evidence that soil biota can influence plant nutritional quality (Kos et al, 2015) and herbivory defenses (Kostenko et al, 2012;Zhu et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aboveground Competition and Herbivory Overpower Plant-Soil Feedback Contributions to Succession in a Remediated Grassland

Dietterich

Garvey

et al. 2019

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Plant-soil feedback (PSF) can provide a driving force during ecological succession by altering soil properties in ways that benefit or disadvantage other species in the successional sequence. Succession may be inevitable in disturbed sites remediated by planting early successional species, but information on PSF in such settings is lacking. We investigated whether gray birch (Betula populifolia), a native species but strong invader, alters succession from grassland to deciduous forest at a site contaminated with zinc, lead, and cadmium. We investigated PSF within the context of competition, herbivory, and soil contaminants, and evaluated whether gray birch, as a high metal accumulator, engages in elemental allelopathy, poisoning other species through its metal-contaminated leaf litter. We assessed the effects of gray birch on neighboring plant community structure, soil chemistry, fungal root symbionts, and the germination, growth, and herbivory of seedlings of black oak (Quercus velutina) and sugar maple (Acer saccharum), two tree species expected to follow gray birch in succession. Gray birch was associated with increased diversity in its neighborhood grassland community, increased herbivory on black oak seedlings, and influenced colonization by fungal root symbionts in both species. Seedling biomass was correlated with colonization by ectomycorrhizal fungi in black oak, but not with arbuscular mycorrhizal or dark septate fungal colonization in sugar maple. Gray birch had no effect on maple seedling performance or soil chemistry, and a small effect on black oak performance in the absence of aboveground competition. We found little evidence consistent with elemental allelopathy. Black oak and sugar maple seedlings responded more strongly to variation in soil nutrients than soil heavy metals, and they maintained leaf metal concentration profiles markedly different from those in their soils. We conclude that gray birch alters its environment in ways that could promote establishment and succession of woody species, potentially favoring those that are ectomycorrhizal, but most effects of PSF are overpowered by aboveground competition, herbivory, and/or existing abiotic soil factors. This study well illustrates why the potential for PSF to affect plant performance Dietterich et al. Plant-Soil Feedback and Succession in the Field and community structure must be examined within the context of other ecological processes. Such a broad understanding can inform decisions made in the remediation and management of disturbed sites, and our understanding of plant succession and coexistence in general.

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Plant–soil feedback effects altered by aboveground herbivory explain plant species abundance in the landscape

Heinze

Wacker

Kulmatiski

2020

Ecology

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Citation: Heinze, J., A. Wacker, and A. Kulmatiski. 2020. Plant-soil feedback effects altered by aboveground herbivory explain plant species abundance in the landscape. Ecology 101(6):Abstract. Relatively little is known about how plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) may affect plant growth in field conditions where factors such as herbivory may be important. Using a potted experiment in a grassland, we measured PSFs with and without aboveground insect herbivory for 20 plant species. We then compared PSF values to plant landscape abundance. Aboveground herbivory had a large negative effect on PSF values. For 15 of 20 species, PSFs were more negative with herbivory than without. This occurred because plant biomass on "home" soils was smaller with herbivory than without. PSF values with herbivory were correlated with plant landscape abundance, whereas PSF values without herbivory were not. Shoot nitrogen concentrations suggested that plants create soils that increase nitrogen uptake, but that greater shoot nitrogen values increase herbivory and that the net effect of positive PSF and greater aboveground herbivory is less aboveground biomass. Results provided clear evidence that PSFs alone have limited power in explaining species abundances and that herbivory has stronger effects on plant biomass and growth on the landscape. Our results provide a potential explanation for observed differences between greenhouse and field PSF experiments and suggest that PSF experiments need to consider important biotic interactions, like aboveground herbivory, particularly when the goal of PSF research is to understand plant growth in field conditions.

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The relative importance of plant-soil feedbacks for plant-species performance increases with decreasing intensity of herbivory

Cited by 14 publications

References 71 publications

Plant-Soil Feedbacks of Plantago lanceolata in the Field Depend on Plant Origin and Herbivory

Plant-Soil Feedbacks of Plantago lanceolata in the Field Depend on Plant Origin and Herbivory

Aboveground Competition and Herbivory Overpower Plant-Soil Feedback Contributions to Succession in a Remediated Grassland

Plant–soil feedback effects altered by aboveground herbivory explain plant species abundance in the landscape

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