Heinze J, Werner T, Weber E, Rillig M C, Joshi J
Biodiversity Research/Botany, Institute for Biochemistry and Biology, University of Potsdam, Maulbeerallee 1, 14469, Potsdam, Germany,
Oecologia. 2015 Sep;179(1):249-59. doi: 10.1007/s00442-015-3336-0. Epub 2015 May 12.
Biotic plant-soil interactions and land-use intensity are known to affect plant individual fitness as well as competitiveness and therefore plant-species abundances in communities. Therefore, a link between soil biota and land-use intensity on local abundance of plant species in grasslands can be expected. In two greenhouse experiments, we investigated the effects of soil biota from grassland sites differing in land-use intensity on three grass species that vary in local abundances along this land-use gradient. We were interested in those soil-biota effects that are associated with land-use intensity, and whether these effects act directly or indirectly. Therefore, we grew the three plant species in two separate experiments as single individuals and in mixtures and compared their performance. As single plants, all three grasses showed a similar performance with and without soil biota. In contrast, in mixtures growth of the species in response to the presence or absence of soil biota differed. This resulted in different soil-biota effects that tend to correspond with patterns of species-specific abundances in the field for two of the three species tested. Our results highlight the importance of indirect interactions between plants and soil microorganisms and suggest that combined effects of soil biota and plant-plant interactions are involved in structuring plant communities. In conclusion, our experiments suggest that soil biota may have the potential to alter effects of plant-plant interactions and therefore influence plant-species abundances and diversity in grasslands.
已知生物性植物 - 土壤相互作用和土地利用强度会影响植物个体的适合度以及竞争力，进而影响群落中植物物种的丰度。因此，可以预期土壤生物群与土地利用强度之间存在联系，这种联系会影响草原上植物物种的局部丰度。在两项温室实验中，我们研究了来自不同土地利用强度草原地点的土壤生物群对三种草种的影响，这三种草种在沿此土地利用梯度的局部丰度上有所不同。我们关注与土地利用强度相关的土壤生物群效应，以及这些效应是直接还是间接起作用。因此，我们在两项独立实验中，将这三种植物作为单株植物和混合种植，并比较它们的表现。作为单株植物时，所有三种草在有或没有土壤生物群的情况下表现相似。相比之下，在混合种植中，这些物种对土壤生物群存在与否的生长反应有所不同。这导致了不同的土壤生物群效应，对于所测试的三种物种中的两种，这些效应往往与田间特定物种丰度模式相对应。我们的结果强调了植物与土壤微生物之间间接相互作用的重要性，并表明土壤生物群和植物 - 植物相互作用的综合效应参与了植物群落的构建。总之，我们的实验表明土壤生物群可能有潜力改变植物 - 植物相互作用的影响，从而影响草原上植物物种的丰度和多样性。
