We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
The organization of plant communities: negative plant--soil feedbacks and semiarid grasslands.
- Authors
REINHART, KURT O.
- Abstract
Understanding how plant communities are organized requires uncovering the mechanism(s) regulating plant species coexistence and relative abundance. Negative soil feedbacks may affect plant communities by suppressing dominant species, causing rarity of most plants, or reducing the competitive abilities of all species. Here, three soil feedback experiments were used to differentiate the effects of soil feedbacks on mid- to late-successional and semiarid grasslands. Then I tested whether the direction and degree of soil feedback accounts for variation in relative abundance among species that coexist within each plant community. Negative soil feedbacks predominated across all species and sites and were individually discernible for 40% of plant species. Negative soil feedbacks affected rare to dominant plant species. Negative soil feedbacks, capable of having negative frequency-dependent effects, have the potential to act as a fundamental driver of species coexistence.
- Subjects
PLANT communities; PLANT species; PLANT ecology; BIOTIC communities; PLANT-soil relationships; PLANT classification; GRASSLANDS
- Publication
Ecology, 2012, Vol 93, Issue 11, p2377
- ISSN
0012-9658
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1890/12-0486.1