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Disentangling above- and below-ground facilitation drivers in arid environments: the role of soil microorganisms, soil properties and microhabitat

Authors

  • Yudi M. Lozano,

    Corresponding author
    1. Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas, Spanish National Research Council (EEZA-CSIC), La Cañada de San Urbano, Almería, Spain
    Current affiliation:
    1. Plant Ecology, Institut für Biologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
    2. Berlin-Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research (BBIB), Berlin, Germany

    • Author for correspondence:

      Yudi M. Lozano

      Tel: +34950281045

      Email: yudyja@gmail.com

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  • Cristina Armas,

    1. Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas, Spanish National Research Council (EEZA-CSIC), La Cañada de San Urbano, Almería, Spain
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  • Sara Hortal,

    1. Western Sydney University, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Penrith, NSW, Australia
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  • Fernando Casanoves,

    1. Unidad de Bioestadística del Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE), Turrialba, Costa Rica
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  • Francisco I. Pugnaire

    1. Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas, Spanish National Research Council (EEZA-CSIC), La Cañada de San Urbano, Almería, Spain
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Summary

  • Nurse plants promote establishment of other plant species by buffering climate extremes and improving soil properties. Soil biota plays an important role, but an analysis to disentangle the effects of soil microorganisms, soil properties and microclimate on facilitation is lacking.
  • In three microhabitats (gaps, small and large Retama shrubs), we placed six microcosms with sterilized soil, two per soil origin (i.e. from each microhabitat). One in every pair received an alive, and the other a sterile, inoculum from its own soil. Seeds of annual plants were sown into the microcosms. Germination, survival and biomass were monitored. Soil bacterial communities were characterized by pyrosequencing.
  • Germination in living Retama inoculum was nearly double that of germination in sterile inoculum. Germination was greater under Retama canopies than in gaps. Biomass was up to three times higher in nurse than in gap soils. Soil microorganisms, soil properties and microclimate showed a range of positive to negative effects on understory plants depending on species identity and life stage.
  • Nurse soil microorganisms promoted germination, but the effect was smaller than the positive effects of soil properties and microclimate under nurses. Nurse below-ground environment (soil properties and microorganisms) promoted plant growth and survival more than nurse microhabitat.
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Article Information

DOI

10.1111/nph.14499

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© 2017 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2017 New Phytologist Trust

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Keywords

  • 454 pyrosequencing;
  • microhabitat conditions;
  • plant–plant interactions;
  • plant–soil interactions;
  • seed germination;
  • soil bacterial communities;
  • soil nutrients

Publication History

  • Version of record online:
  • Manuscript Accepted:
  • Manuscript Received:

Funded by

  • Junta de Andalucía Regional Government. Grant Number: P09-RNM-4821
  • MINECO. Grant Numbers: CGL2010-17081, CGL2014-59010-R

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Fig. S1 Sketch of the field experimental design.

Fig. S2 Temperature and air humidity outside and inside the anti-herbivory cage placed in gaps from April to October of 2011.

Fig. S3 Percentage of general Lagurus, Sisymbrium and Stipa seeds in gaps, under small and large Retama canopies (microhabitat), growing in soils from gaps, small or large Retama shrubs (soil origin).

Fig. S4 Mean above-ground plant mass of total plant community grown in microcosms with soils from gaps, small and large Retama shrubs, growing in gaps, or under small or large Retama shrubs (microhabitat) 5 months after sowing.

Fig. S5 Survival of Lagurus, Sisymbrium and Stipa individuals in microcosms with alive and sterile soils from large and small Retama shrubs and from gaps placed in gaps and under small and large shrubs.

Fig. S6 Survival of the plant community in microcosms with soils from gaps, small or large Retama shrubs (soil origin), grown in gaps or under small or large Retama shrubs (microhabitat) 5 months after seed sowing.

Fig. S7 Hierarchical cluster analysis of bacterial OTUs in soils collected from gaps and from under large Retama shrubs watered with alive or sterile inoculum at the beginning and end of the experiment.

Table S1 Results from general linear mixed models on seed germination 20 d after sowing and plant survival per species at the end of the experiment (5 months after sowing) and from a general linear mixed model on above-ground biomass at the end of the experiment

Table S2 Results from a priori contrast tests indicating whether RII values were significantly different from zero

Table S3 Results from a general linear mixed model on above-ground biomass and from a generalized linear mixed model on plant survival per plant community (microcosm) at the end of the experiment (5 months after sowing)

Methods S1 Detailed description of soil DNA extraction, amplification, pyrosequencing and sequences analysis of 16S rDNA gene fragment.

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  1. 1Wayne Dawson, Jens Hör, Markus Egert, Mark van Kleunen, Michael Pester, A Small Number of Low-abundance Bacteria Dominate Plant Species-specific Responses during Rhizosphere Colonization, Frontiers in Microbiology, 2017, 8CrossRef