Plant community effects on plant-soil feedbacks

Background

Plant species vary in their root traits and, consequently, develop different interactions with plant-associated soil biota such as microbial pathogens, root-feeding nematodes and mycorrhizal fungi. As such, plant species accumulate species-specific communities living in the direct vicinity of their roots – an area called the rhizosphere. Depending on their composition, rhizosphere communities positively or negatively affect the performance of the host plant, but also the performance of plant individuals subsequently establishing in the same soil. This mechanism, called plant-soil feedback, is a key driver of plant community dynamics and natural succession. However, while such feedback interactions between sequentially establishing plant individuals are well known, it is still unclear how surrounding plant communities affect the development of rhizosphere communities of individual plants and subsequent feedback effects in these soils.

Project description

In this project, funded by a Postdoc grant of the Wageningen Graduate Schools, I will set up greenhouse experiments and field surveys and use molecular analyses to examine how:

1. The diversity and composition of the surrounding plant communities affect the development of microbial and nematode communities in the rhizospheres of single plants.
2. How these changes in rhizosphere communities affect the performance of individuals of the same and different plant species establishing in these soils.

Together, these results will improve our understanding of the role of plant-soil feedbacks as drivers of plant community composition.