Effects of soil conditioning, root and shoot litter addition interact to determine the intensity of plant–soil feedback

0557970 - BÚ 2023 RIV DK eng J - Journal Article
Aldorfová, Anna - Dostálek, Tomáš - Münzbergová, Zuzana
Effects of soil conditioning, root and shoot litter addition interact to determine the intensity of plant–soil feedback.
Oikos. Roč. 2022, č. 6 (2022), č. článku e09025. ISSN 0030-1299. E-ISSN 1600-0706
R&D Projects: GA ČR GB14-36079G; GA ČR GA20-01813S
Institutional support: RVO:67985939
Keywords : arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi * leaf-litter * seedling establishment * population-dynamics * decomposition * diversity * growth * carbon * communities * grasslands * litter addition * plant-soil interactions * soil biota * soil chemistry * soil conditioning
OECD category: Ecology
Impact factor: 3.4, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Limited access
https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.09025

Plant–soil feedback (PSF) is recognized as an important mechanism shaping plant communities and determining plant abundance and coexistence. Under natural conditions, plants affect the outcome of plant–soil interactions simultaneously by conditioning the soil by living roots and by litter inputs into the soil. However, most experimental studies only focus on one of the pathways, which limits our understanding of PSF in the field.Here, we simultaneously explored the effect of soil conditioning by living roots and of root and shoot litter addition on the performance of seven Impatiens species grown in a two-phase garden experiment.Soil conditioning negatively affected plant performance, which was at least partlyexplained by nutrient depletion. Root litter addition affected plant performance negatively and the results suggest that biotic effects such as pathogen transmission via the root litter played a role. The effects of root litter addition were more pronounced in control soil which, contrary to the conditioned soil, supposedly did not accumulate pathogens during the conditioning phase. Shoot litter addition increased soil nutrient levels, but had no impact on plant performance. However, presence of shoot litter aggravated the negative effects of root litter, probably due to increased amounts of nutrients available for soil biota and thus their faster growth and intensified effect on the plants.Overall, our study suggests that root and shoot litter have contrasting roles in plant–soil interactions and understanding their separate and interactive effects together with effects of soil conditioning is crucial for assessing the complexity of PSF.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0332150