Globally, plant-soil feedbacks are weak predictors of plant abundance

Abstract

Plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) have been shown to strongly affect plant performance under controlled conditions, and PSFs are thought to have far reaching consequences for plant population dynamics and the structuring of plant communities. However, thus far the relationship between PSF and plant species abundance in the field is not consistent. Here, we synthesize PSF experiments from tropical forests to semiarid grasslands, and test for a positive relationship between plant abundance in the field and PSFs estimated from controlled bioassays. We meta-analyzed results from 22 PSF experiments and found an overall positive correlation (0.12

Keywords

community composition; meta-analysis; plant abundance; plant dominance; plant rarity; plant-soil feedbacks; soil biota; species coexistence

Published in

Ecology and Evolution
2021, volume: 11, number: 4, pages: 1756-1768
Publisher: WILEY

SLU Authors

• Kardol, Paul

  • Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Associated SLU-program

SLU Plant Protection Network

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7167

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/110677