Plant-Soil Feedbacks and Temporal Dynamics of Plant Diversity-Productivity Relationships

Madhav P Thakur; Wim H van der Putten; Rutger A Wilschut; G F Ciska Veen; Paul Kardol; Jasper van Ruijven; Eric Allan; Christiane Roscher; Mark van Kleunen; T Martijn Bezemer

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2021.03.011

Plant-Soil Feedbacks and Temporal Dynamics of Plant Diversity-Productivity Relationships

Trends Ecol Evol. 2021 Jul;36(7):651-661. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2021.03.011. Epub 2021 Apr 20.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland. Electronic address: madhav.thakur@iee.unibe.ch.
² Department of Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO- KNAW), Wageningen, The Netherlands; Laboratory of Nematology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
³ Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464, Konstanz, Germany.
⁴ Department of Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO- KNAW), Wageningen, The Netherlands.
⁵ Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå, Sweden.
⁶ Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
⁷ Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
⁸ Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Physiological Diversity - UFZ, Leipzig, Germany; German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Puschstrasse 4, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
⁹ Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464, Konstanz, Germany; Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Taizhou University, Taizhou 318000, China.
¹⁰ Department of Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO- KNAW), Wageningen, The Netherlands; Institute of Biology, Section Plant Ecology and Phytochemistry, Leiden University, 2300, RA, Leiden, The Netherlands.

PMID: 33888322
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2021.03.011

Abstract

Plant-soil feedback (PSF) and diversity-productivity relationships are important research fields to study drivers and consequences of changes in plant biodiversity. While studies suggest that positive plant diversity-productivity relationships can be explained by variation in PSF in diverse plant communities, key questions on their temporal relationships remain. Here, we discuss three processes that change PSF over time in diverse plant communities, and their effects on temporal dynamics of diversity-productivity relationships: spatial redistribution and changes in dominance of plant species; phenotypic shifts in plant traits; and dilution of soil pathogens and increase in soil mutualists. Disentangling these processes in plant diversity experiments will yield new insights into how plant diversity-productivity relationships change over time.

Keywords: biodiversity–ecosystem functioning; dilution effects; plant–soil interactions; spatial turnover; trait evolution.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Biodiversity
Ecosystem*
Feedback
Plants
Soil*

Substances

Soil