Abstract
Plant–soil feedback is one of the mechanisms affecting co-existence of species, ecological succession, and species invasiveness. However, in contrast to conspecific plant–soil feedback, general patterns in heterospecific feedback are mostly unknown. We used a meta-analysis to search for correlations between heterospecific feedback and species relatedness, functional traits, and field co-occurrence patterns. We searched published literature and compiled a data set of 618 PSF interactions. We gathered data on species traits reflecting plant size and growth rate (height, specific leaf area, and life span), co-occurrence in habitats and phylogenetic distance between species pairs. We found that species grew better in soil conditioned by (i) close relatives than in conspecific soil, whereas there was no relationship with phylogeny for distantly related species, (ii) species of greater plant height (but there was no relationship with species SLA or life span), and (iii) species more frequently co-occurring in the field. The results show that heterospecific plant–soil feedback can be explained by plant traits (height) and is reflected in co-occurrence patterns. Phylogeny was a significant predictor of feedbacks over short phylogenetic distance, suggesting fast evolution of traits related to feedback. The low variability explained by the models, however, indicates that other factors such as environmental conditions possibly alter plant–soil feedback responses.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Paul Kardol for provision of his experimental data. We are grateful to three anonymous reviewers and all the co-workers from the “poseminář” and POPEKOL discussion groups for their helpful comments. The study was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (project GAČR 16-09659S) and by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (RVO 67985939).
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All authors contributed to the design of this study. EK was responsible for gathering the data, and wrote the first draft. EK and TH performed the analyses. TH and ZM also contributed to obtaining the data, and they participated on writing the manuscript.
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Communicated by Sarah M Emery.
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Kuťáková, E., Herben, T. & Münzbergová, Z. Heterospecific plant–soil feedback and its relationship to plant traits, species relatedness, and co-occurrence in natural communities. Oecologia 187, 679–688 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-018-4145-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-018-4145-z