Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Feedback with soil biota contributes to plant rarity and invasiveness in communities

Nature volume 417, pages 67–70 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

Understanding the relative abundance of species in plant communities is an unsolved problem 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Mechanisms such as competition, resource partitioning5, dispersal ability10 and predation tolerance6,7,8,9 do not adequately explain relative abundance under field conditions11,12. Recent work suggests that interactions between plants and soil microbes is important13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21. Here I show that such interaction explains a significant proportion of the variance in the relative abundance of species in plant communities. Rare plants exhibited a relative decrease in growth on ‘home’ soil in which pathogens had had a chance to accumulate, whereas invasive plants benefited from interactions with mycorrhizal fungi. Some plant species accumulate pathogens quickly and maintain low densities as a result of the accumulation of species-specific pathogens, whereas others accumulate species-specific pathogens more slowly and do not experience negative feedback until plant densities reach high levels13,15,21. These results indicate that plants have different abilities to influence their abundance by changing the structure of their soil communities, and that this is an important regulator of plant community structure.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: The soil feedback responses of five invasive and five rare plant species.
Figure 2: The feedback responses of five invasive and five rare plant species to pathogen/saprobes, mycorrhizal fungi, and sterile soil fractions.
Figure 3: The relationship between relative plant abundance in an old-field site and soil feedback response.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Pysek, P., Prach, K., Rejmanek, M. & Wade, M. Plant Invasions: General Aspects and Special Problems (SPB Academic, Amsterdam, 1995).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Huston, M. A. Biological Diversity. The Coexistence of Species on Changing Landscapes (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1994).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Ricklefs, R. E. & Schluter, D. Species Diversity in Ecological Communities (Univ. Chicago Press, Chicago, 1993).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Gaston, K. J. Rarity (Chapman & Hall, London, 1994).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  5. Grace, J. B. & Tilman, D. Perspectives on Plant Competition (Academic, San Diego, 1990).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Belsky, A. J. Effects of grazing, competition, disturbance and fire on species composition and diversity in grassland communities. J. Veget. Sci. 3, 187–200 (1992).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Milton, W. The effect of manuring, grazing and cutting on the yield, botanical and chemical composition of natural hill pastures. J. Ecol. 28, 326–356 (1940).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Crawley, M. J. in Insect–Plant Interactions (ed. Bernays, E. A.) Vol. 1, 45–71 (CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1989).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Reader, R. J. Relationship between species relative abundance and plant traits for an infertile habitat. Plant Ecol. 134, 43–51 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Rabinowitz, D., Rapp, J. K., Cairns, S. & Mayer, M. The persistence of rare prairie grasses in Missouri: environmental variation buffered by reproductive output of sparse species. Am. Nat. 134, 525–544 (1989).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Tokeshi, M. Species Coexistence: Ecological and Evolutionary Perspectives (Blackwell Science, Oxford, 1999).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Tilman, D. in Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function (eds Schulze, E.-D. & Mooney, H. A.) 327–344 (Springer, Berlin, 1994).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  13. Van der Putten, W. H., Van Dijk, C. & Peters, B. A. M. Plant-specific soil-borne diseases contribute to succession in foredune vegetation. Nature 362, 53–56 (1993).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  14. Grime, J. P., Mackey, J. M. L., Hillier, S. H. & Read, D. J. Floristic diversity in a model system using experimental microcosms. Nature 328, 420–422 (1987).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  15. Bever, J. D. Feedback between plants and their soil communities in an old field community. Ecology 75, 1965–1977 (1994).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Bever, J. D., Westover, K. M. & Antonovics, J. Incorporating the soil community into plant population dynamics: the utility of the feedback approach. J. Ecol. 85, 561–573 (1997).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Van der Heijden, M. G. A. et al. Mycorrhizal fungal diversity determines plant biodiversity, ecosystem variability and productivity. Nature 396, 69–72 (1998).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Packer, A. & Clay, K. Soil pathogens and spatial patterns of seedling mortality in a temperate tree. Nature 404, 278–281 (2000).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Mills, K. E. & Bever, J. D. Maintenance of diversity within plant communities: soil pathogens as agents of negative feedback. Ecology 79, 1595–1601 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Callaway, R. M. & Ascheloug, E. T. Invasive plants versus their new and old neighbors: a mechanism for exotic invasion. Science 290, 521–523 (2000).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Olff, H., Hoorens, B., de Goede, R. G. M., van der Putten, W. H. & Gleichman, J. M. Small-scale shifting mosaics of two dominant grassland species: the possible role of soil-borne pathogens. Oecologia 125, 45–54 (2000).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Burdon, J. J. Diseases and Plant Population Biology (Cambridge Studies in Ecology, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1987).

    Google Scholar 

  23. van der Putten, W. H. Pathogen-driven forest diversity. Nature 404, 232–233 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Blomqvist, M. M., Olff, H., Blaauw, M. B., Bongers, T. & van der Putten, W. H. Interactions between above- and belowground biota: importance for small-scale vegetation mosaics in a grassland ecosystem. Oikos 90, 582–598 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Klironomos, J. N., Moutoglis, P., Kendrick, B. & Widden, P. A comparison of spatial heterogeneity of vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in two maple-forest soils. Can. J. Botany 71, 1472–1480 (1993).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Bragulat, M. R., Abarca, M. L., Bruguera, M. T. & Cabanes, F. J. Dyes as fungal inhibitors: effect on colony diameter. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 57, 2777–2780 (1991).

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  27. Domsch, K. H., Gams, W. & Anderson, T.-H. Compendium of Soil Fungi Vol. 1 (Academic, London, 1980).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I thank J. Bever, M. Hart, B. Husband and R. Reader for comments on the manuscript. I also thank A. Jones, G. LaPierre, G. Lewis, D. MacIntosh, J. Martin, J. Mosquin, P. Moutoglis and A. Shaw for laboratory and field assistance. This work was supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany, University of Guelph, Guelph, N1G 2W1, Ontario, Canada

    John N. Klironomos

Authors
  1. John N. Klironomos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to John N. Klironomos.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares that he has no competing financial interests

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Klironomos, J. Feedback with soil biota contributes to plant rarity and invasiveness in communities. Nature 417, 67–70 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/417067a

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/417067a

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing