Soil legacy effects and plant–soil feedback contribution to secondary succession processes

Highlights

● The PSF of three species is positive in response to different soil origin.

● The PSF of early-species is negative in response to plant growth period.

● The PSF of mid- and late-species is negative in early- species soil over time.

● The PSF of mid- and late-species is neutral in mid- species soil over time.

● The PSF of mid- and late-species is positive in late-species soil over time.

Abstract

Secondary succession is the process by which a community develops into a climax community over time. However, knowledge on the mechanisms, relating to soil legacy effects (soil chemistry and enzyme activity) and plant–soil feedback (PSF), driving community succession remains limited. In this work, we examined the PSF associated with three succession stage species through a 2-year greenhouse experiment. Setaria viridis, Stipa bungeana, and Bothriochloa ischemum were selected to represent dominant and representative early-, mid-, and late-successional stage species, respectively, of semiarid grasslands on the Loess Plateau. In response to the different soil origin, the shoot biomass of early-, mid-, and late-species were all higher when grown in their own soil than in other species’ soils, which indicated that the PSF of three species were positive. Over two growth periods, the early-species experienced a negative PSF, but the mid- and late-species experienced negative, neutral and positive PSF in the soil of early-, mid- and late-species, respectively. Our study demonstrates that soil legacy effects and PSF have a significant impact on community succession processes.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Grassland / Plant growth / Plant-soil feedback / Soil microbial activity / Soil legacy effects / Secondary succession

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Acknowledgements

We thank everyone who assisted with this work, including the experimental design, data collection and analysis, and writing of the manuscript. This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42130717), and the Shaanxi Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (2021JC-50).

Author contributions

Q. Q., H.X., S.X., and G.L. designed the experiment; Q. Q., and H.X., analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. All authors made important contributions to the manuscript and approved publication.

Conflict of interest

All the authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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