The interplay between soil structure, roots, and microbiota as a determinant of plant–soil feedback

52Citations
Citations of this article
194Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

This article is free to access.

Abstract

Plant–soil feedback (PSF) can influence plant community structure via changes in the soil microbiome. However, how these feedbacks depend on the soil environment remains poorly understood. We hypothesized that disintegrating a naturally aggregated soil may influence the outcome of PSF by affecting microbial communities. Furthermore, we expected plants to differentially interact with soil structure and the microbial communities due to varying root morphology. We carried out a feedback experiment with nine plant species (five forbs and four grasses) where the “training phase” consisted of aggregated versus disintegrated soil. In the feedback phase, a uniform soil was inoculated in a fully factorial design with soil washings from conspecific- versus heterospecific-trained soil that had been either disintegrated or aggregated. This way, the effects of prior soil structure on plant performance in terms of biomass production and allocation were examined. In the training phase, soil structure did not affect plant biomass. But on disintegrated soil, plants with lower specific root length (SRL) allocated more biomass aboveground. PSF in the feedback phase was negative overall. With training on disintegrated soil, conspecific feedback was positively correlated with SRL and significantly differed between grasses and forbs. Plants with higher SRL were likely able to easily explore the disintegrated soil with smaller pores, while plants with lower SRL invested in belowground biomass for soil exploration and seemed to be more susceptible to fungal pathogens. This suggests that plants with low SRL could be more limited by PSF on disintegrated soils of early successional stages. This study is the first to examine the influence of soil structure on PSF. Our results suggest that soil structure determines the outcome of PSF mediated by SRL. We recommend to further explore the effects of soil structure and propose to include root performance when working with PSF.

References Powered by Scopus

Organic matter and water‐stable aggregates in soils

4992Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

A history of research on the link between (micro)aggregates, soil biota, and soil organic matter dynamics

3291Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

A new method which gives an objective measure of colonization of roots by vesicular—arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi

3174Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Cited by Powered by Scopus

Microplastics as an emerging threat to terrestrial ecosystems

1620Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Microplastics Can Change Soil Properties and Affect Plant Performance

1397Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Cover cropping and no-till increase diversity and symbiotroph:saprotroph ratios of soil fungal communities

205Citations
N/AReaders
Get full text

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Bergmann, J., Verbruggen, E., Heinze, J., Xiang, D., Chen, B., Joshi, J., & Rillig, M. C. (2016). The interplay between soil structure, roots, and microbiota as a determinant of plant–soil feedback. Ecology and Evolution, 6(21), 7633–7644. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.2456

Readers over time

‘16‘17‘18‘19‘20‘21‘22‘23‘24‘2509182736

Readers' Seniority

Tooltip

PhD / Post grad / Masters / Doc 80

66%

Researcher 26

21%

Professor / Associate Prof. 10

8%

Lecturer / Post doc 6

5%

Readers' Discipline

Tooltip

Agricultural and Biological Sciences 81

65%

Environmental Science 29

23%

Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Bi... 8

6%

Engineering 7

6%

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free
0