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Legacy effects of drought on plant growth and the soil food web

  • Global change ecology - Original research
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Abstract

Soils deliver important ecosystem services, such as nutrient provision for plants and the storage of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), which are greatly impacted by drought. Both plants and soil biota affect soil C and N availability, which might in turn affect their response to drought, offering the potential to feed back on each other’s performance. In a greenhouse experiment, we compared legacy effects of repeated drought on plant growth and the soil food web in two contrasting land-use systems: extensively managed grassland, rich in C and with a fungal-based food web, and intensively managed wheat lower in C and with a bacterial-based food web. Moreover, we assessed the effect of plant presence on the recovery of the soil food web after drought. Drought legacy effects increased plant growth in both systems, and a plant strongly reduced N leaching. Fungi, bacteria, and their predators were more resilient after drought in the grassland soil than in the wheat soil. The presence of a plant strongly affected the composition of the soil food web, and alleviated the effects of drought for most trophic groups, regardless of the system. This effect was stronger for the bottom trophic levels, whose resilience was positively correlated to soil available C. Our results show that plant belowground inputs have the potential to affect the recovery of belowground communities after drought, with implications for the functions they perform, such as C and N cycling.

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Acknowledgments

This project was part of the EU 7th Framework funded SOILSERVICE project, led by Katarina Hedlund. We want to thank all project partners for contributing to this manuscript through discussions. We thank Simon Mortimer and Dan Carpenter for setting up the field experiment, and Guy Hildred for allowing us to sample his fields. Helen Quirk, Lorna Trimnell, Victor van Velzen, Annette Spangenberg, Lena Folkvard Petersen, Ian Dodd, Gabry Mies, Floor Willeboordse, Bas v/d Waterbeemd, Christian Siderius, Erin Wilson, and Krisna Wilson all helped with field and laboratory work. Finally, we thank the referees and the editor for their helpful and constructive comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Soil and Ecosystem Ecology, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, UK

    Franciska Trijntje de Vries & Richard D. Bardgett

  2. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Niemenkatu 73, 15140, Lahti, Finland

    Mira E. Liiri & Heikki M. Setälä

  3. Terrestrisk Økologi, Biologisk Institut, Øster Farimagsgade 2D, 1353, København K, Denmark

    Lisa Bjørnlund & Søren Christensen

Authors
  1. Franciska Trijntje de Vries
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  2. Mira E. Liiri
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  3. Lisa Bjørnlund
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  4. Heikki M. Setälä
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  5. Søren Christensen
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  6. Richard D. Bardgett
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Correspondence to Franciska Trijntje de Vries.

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Communicated by Pascal Niklaus.

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de Vries, F.T., Liiri, M.E., Bjørnlund, L. et al. Legacy effects of drought on plant growth and the soil food web. Oecologia 170, 821–833 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-012-2331-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-012-2331-y

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