TY  - JOUR
A1  - Soliveres, Santiago
A1  - van der Plas, Fons
A1  - Manning, Peter
A1  - Prati, Daniel
A1  - Gossner, Martin M.
A1  - Renner, Swen C.
A1  - Alt, Fabian
A1  - Arndt, Hartmut
A1  - Baumgartner, Vanessa
A1  - Binkenstein, Julia
A1  - Birkhofer, Klaus
A1  - Blaser, Stefan
A1  - Blüthgen, Nico
A1  - Boch, Steffen
A1  - Böhm, Stefan
A1  - Börschig, Carmen
A1  - Buscot, Francois
A1  - Diekötter, Tim
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
A1  - Hölzel, Norbert
A1  - Jung, Kirsten
A1  - Klaus, Valentin H.
A1  - Kleinebecker, Till
A1  - Klemmer, Sandra
A1  - Krauss, Jochen
A1  - Lange, Markus
A1  - Morris, E. Kathryn
A1  - Müller, Jörg
A1  - Oelmann, Yvonne
A1  - Overmann, Jörg
A1  - Pasalic, Esther
A1  - Rillig, Matthias C.
A1  - Schaefer, H. Martin
A1  - Schloter, Michael
A1  - Schmitt, Barbara
A1  - Schöning, Ingo
A1  - Schrumpf, Marion
A1  - Sikorski, Johannes
A1  - Socher, Stephanie A.
A1  - Solly, Emily F.
A1  - Sonnemann, Ilja
A1  - Sorkau, Elisabeth
A1  - Steckel, Juliane
A1  - Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf
A1  - Stempfhuber, Barbara
A1  - Tschapka, Marco
A1  - Türke, Manfred
A1  - Venter, Paul C.
A1  - Weiner, Christiane N.
A1  - Weisser, Wolfgang W.
A1  - Werner, Michael
A1  - Westphal, Catrin
A1  - Wilcke, Wolfgang
A1  - Wolters, Volkmar
A1  - Wubet, Tesfaye
A1  - Wurst, Susanne
A1  - Fischer, Markus
A1  - Allan, Eric
T1  - Biodiversity at multiple trophic levels is needed for ecosystem multifunctionality
JF  - Nature : the international weekly journal of science
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/nature19092
SN  - 0028-0836
SN  - 1476-4687
VL  - 536
SP  - 456
EP  - +
PB  - Nature Publ. Group
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Soliveres, Santiago
A1  - Manning, Peter
A1  - Prati, Daniel
A1  - Gossner, Martin M.
A1  - Alt, Fabian
A1  - Arndt, Hartmut
A1  - Baumgartner, Vanessa
A1  - Binkenstein, Julia
A1  - Birkhofer, Klaus
A1  - Blaser, Stefan
A1  - Bluethgen, Nico
A1  - Boch, Steffen
A1  - Boehm, Stefan
A1  - Boerschig, Carmen
A1  - Buscot, Francois
A1  - Diekoetter, Tim
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
A1  - Hoelzel, Norbert
A1  - Jung, Kirsten
A1  - Klaus, Valentin H.
A1  - Klein, Alexandra-Maria
A1  - Kleinebecker, Till
A1  - Klemmer, Sandra
A1  - Krauss, Jochen
A1  - Lange, Markus
A1  - Morris, E. Kathryn
A1  - Mueller, Joerg
A1  - Oelmann, Yvonne
A1  - Overmann, Jörg
A1  - Pasalic, Esther
A1  - Renner, Swen C.
A1  - Rillig, Matthias C.
A1  - Schaefer, H. Martin
A1  - Schloter, Michael
A1  - Schmitt, Barbara
A1  - Schoening, Ingo
A1  - Schrumpf, Marion
A1  - Sikorski, Johannes
A1  - Socher, Stephanie A.
A1  - Solly, Emily F.
A1  - Sonnemann, Ilja
A1  - Sorkau, Elisabeth
A1  - Steckel, Juliane
A1  - Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf
A1  - Stempfhuber, Barbara
A1  - Tschapka, Marco
A1  - Tuerke, Manfred
A1  - Venter, Paul
A1  - Weiner, Christiane N.
A1  - Weisser, Wolfgang W.
A1  - Werner, Michael
A1  - Westphal, Catrin
A1  - Wilcke, Wolfgang
A1  - Wolters, Volkmar
A1  - Wubet, Tesfaye
A1  - Wurst, Susanne
A1  - Fischer, Markus
A1  - Allan, Eric
T1  - Locally rare species influence grassland ecosystem multifunctionality
JF  - Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London : B, Biological sciences
N2  - Species diversity promotes the delivery of multiple ecosystem functions (multifunctionality). However, the relative functional importance of rare and common species in driving the biodiversity multifunctionality relationship remains unknown. We studied the relationship between the diversity of rare and common species (according to their local abundances and across nine different trophic groups), and multifunctionality indices derived from 14 ecosystem functions on 150 grasslands across a land use intensity (LUI) gradient. The diversity of above- and below-ground rare species had opposite effects, with rare above-ground species being associated with high levels of multifunctionality, probably because their effects on different functions did not trade off against each other. Conversely, common species were only related to average, not high, levels of multifunctionality, and their functional effects declined with LUI. Apart from the community level effects of diversity, we found significant positive associations between the abundance of individual species and multifunctionality in 6% of the species tested. Species specific functional effects were best predicted by their response to LUI: species that declined in abundance with land use intensification were those associated with higher levels of multifunctionality. Our results highlight the importance of rare species for ecosystem multifunctionality and help guiding future conservation priorities.
KW  - biodiversity
KW  - common species
KW  - ecosystem function
KW  - identity hypothesis
KW  - land use
KW  - multitrophic
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0269
SN  - 0962-8436
SN  - 1471-2970
VL  - 371
SP  - 3175
EP  - 3185
PB  - Royal Society
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schöpke, Benito
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
A1  - Pätzig, Marlene
A1  - Heinken, Thilo
T1  - Do dispersal traits of wetland plant species explain tolerance against isolation effects in naturally fragmented habitats?
JF  - Plant ecology : an international journal
N2  - The effects of habitat fragmentation and isolation on plant species richness have been verified for a wide range of anthropogenically fragmented habitats, but there is currently little information about their effects in naturally small and isolated habitats. We tested whether habitat area, heterogeneity, and isolation affect the richness of wetland vascular plant species in kettle holes, i.e., small glacially created wetlands, in an agricultural landscape of 1 km(2) in NE Germany. We compared fragmentation effects with those of forest fragments in the same landscape window. Since wetland and forest species might differ in their tolerance to isolation, and because isolation effects on plant species may be trait dependent, we asked which key life history traits might foster differences in isolation tolerance between wetland and forest plants. We recorded the flora and vegetation types in 83 isolated sites that contained 81 kettle holes and 25 forest fragments. Overall, the number of wetland species increased with increasing area and heterogeneity, i.e., the number of vegetation types, while area was not a surrogate for heterogeneity in these naturally fragmented systems. Isolation did not influence the number of wetland species but decreased the number of forest species. We also found that seeds of wetland species were on average lighter, more persistent and better adapted to epizoochory, e.g., by waterfowl, than seeds of forest species. Therefore, we suggest that wetland species are more tolerant to isolation than forest species due to their higher dispersal potential in space and time, which may counterbalance the negative effects of isolation.
KW  - Forest species
KW  - Habitat fragmentation
KW  - Isolation
KW  - Kettle holes
KW  - Life history traits
KW  - Wetland species
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-019-00955-8
SN  - 1385-0237
SN  - 1573-5052
VL  - 220
IS  - 9
SP  - 801
EP  - 815
PB  - Springer
CY  - Dordrecht
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Werger, Luise
A1  - Bergmann, Joana
A1  - Weber, Ewald
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
T1  - Wind intensity affects fine root morphological traits with consequences for plant-soil feedback effects
JF  - Annals of Botany Plants
N2  - Wind influences the development, architecture and morphology of plant roots and may modify subsequent interactions between plants and soil (plant–soil feedbacks—PSFs). However, information on wind effects on fine root morphology is scarce and the extent to which wind changes plant–soil interactions remains unclear. Therefore, we investigated the effects of two wind intensity levels by manipulating surrounding vegetation height in a grassland PSF field experiment. We grew four common plant species (two grasses and two non-leguminous forbs) with soil biota either previously conditioned by these or other species and tested the effect of wind on root:shoot ratio, fine root morphological traits as well as the outcome for PSFs. Wind intensity did not affect biomass allocation (i.e. root:shoot ratio) in any species. However, fine-root morphology of all species changed under high wind intensity. High wind intensity increased specific root length and surface area and decreased root tissue density, especially in the two grasses. Similarly, the direction of PSFs changed under high wind intensity in all four species, but differences in biomass production on the different soils between high and low wind intensity were marginal and most pronounced when comparing grasses with forbs. Because soils did not differ in plant-available nor total nutrient content, the results suggest that wind-induced changes in root morphology have the potential to influence plant–soil interactions. Linking wind-induced changes in fine-root morphology to effects on PSF improves our understanding of plant–soil interactions under changing environmental conditions.
KW  - Wind
KW  - root traits
KW  - root morphology
KW  - specific root length
KW  - plant–soil feedback
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1093/aobpla/plaa050
SN  - 2041-2851
VL  - 12
IS  - 5
PB  - Oxford University Press
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - THES
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
T1  - The impact of soil microbiota on plant species performance and diversity in semi-natural grasslands
Y1  - 2016
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
T1  - Herbivory by aboveground insects impacts plant root morphological traits
JF  - Plant ecology : an international journal
N2  - Aboveground herbivory induces physiological responses, like the release of belowground chemical defense and storage of secondary metabolites, as well as physical responses in plants, like increased root biomass production. However, studies on effects of aboveground herbivory on root morphology are scarce and until now no study tested herbivory effects under natural conditions for a large set of plant species. Therefore, in a field experiment on plant-soil interactions, I investigated the effect of aboveground insect herbivory on root morphological traits of 20 grassland plant species. For 9 of the 20 species, all individuals showed shoot damage in the presence of insect herbivores, but no damage in insect herbivore exclusions. In these 9 species root biomass increased and root morphological traits changed under herbivory towards thinner roots with increased specific root surface. In contrast, the remaining species did not differ in the number of individuals damaged, root biomass nor morphological traits with herbivores present vs. absent. The fact that aboveground herbivory resulted in thinner roots with increased specific root surface area for all species in which the herbivore exclusion manipulation altered shoot damage might indicate that plants increase nutrient uptake in response to herbivory. However, more importantly, results provide empirical evidence that aboveground herbivory impacts root morphological traits of plants. As these traits are important for the occupation of soil space, uptake processes, decomposition and interactions with soil biota, results suggest that herbivory-induced changes in root morphology might be of importance for plant-soil feedbacks and plant-plant competition.
KW  - herbivory
KW  - root traits
KW  - specific root length
KW  - specific root surface
KW  - area
KW  - plant-soil feedback
KW  - competition
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-020-01045-w
SN  - 1385-0237
SN  - 1573-5052
VL  - 221
IS  - 8
SP  - 725
EP  - 732
PB  - Springer
CY  - Dordrecht
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
T1  - Correction to: Heinze, Johannes: Herbivory by aboveground insects impacts plant root morphological traits. - Plant Ecology. - 221 (2020). - S. 725 - 732
JF  - Plant ecology : an international journal
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-021-01194-6
SN  - 1385-0237
SN  - 1573-5052
VL  - 223
IS  - 115
PB  - Springer
CY  - Dordrecht
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
A1  - Joshi, Jasmin Radha
T1  - Plant-soil feedback effects can be masked by aboveground herbivory under natural field conditions
JF  - Oecologia
N2  - For plants, herbivory and interactions with their surrounding soil ecosystem are crucial factors influencing individual performance and plant-community composition. Until now, research has mostly focused on individual effects of herbivory or plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) on plant growth and community composition, but few studies have explicitly investigated herbivory in the context of PSFs. These few studies, however, were performed under greenhouse conditions even though PSFs and herbivory may differ between greenhouse and field conditions. Therefore, we performed a field experiment in a grassland, testing the growth responses of three grass species that consistently differ in local abundance, on soils previously conditioned by these species. We tested these PSF effects for the three species both in the presence and in the absence of aboveground herbivores. Without herbivores, the two subdominant species suffered from negative PSF effects. However, in the presence of herbivores and on heterospecific soils, the same two species experienced a significant loss of shoot biomass, whereas, in contrast, enhanced root growth was observed on conspecific soils, resulting in overall neutral PSF effects. The dominant species was not damaged by herbivores and showed overall neutral PSF effects in the field with and without herbivores. Our study provides empirical evidence that negative PSF effects that exist under natural field conditions in grasslands can be overwhelmed by aboveground herbivory. Hence, potential PSF effects might not be detected in the field, because other abiotic and biotic interactions such as aboveground herbivory have stronger effects on plant performance and might therefore mask or override these PSF effects.
KW  - Herbivores
KW  - Field experiment
KW  - Plant-community composition
KW  - Plant diversity
KW  - Plant-soil feedback
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-017-3997-y
SN  - 0029-8549
SN  - 1432-1939
VL  - 186
IS  - 1
SP  - 235
EP  - 246
PB  - Springer
CY  - New York
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
A1  - Gensch, Sabine
A1  - Weber, Ewald
A1  - Joshi, Jasmin Radha
T1  - Soil temperature modifies effects of soil biota on plant growth
JF  - Journal of plant ecology
N2  - Aims Plants directly and indirectly interact with many abiotic and biotic soil components. Research so far mostly focused on direct, individual abiotic or biotic effects on plant growth, but only few studies tested the indirect effects of abiotic soil factors on plant growth. Therefore, we investigated how abiotic soil conditions affect plant performance, via changes induced by soil biota. Methods In a full-factorial experiment, we grew the widespread grass Dactylis glomerata either with or without soil biota and investigated the impact of soil temperature, fertility and moisture on the soil biota effects on plant growth. We measured biomass production, root traits and colonization by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi as well as microbial respiration. Important Findings We found significant interaction effects between abiotic soil conditions and soil biota on plant growth for fertility, but especially for soil temperature, as an increase of 10 degrees C significantly changed the soil biota effects on plant growth from positive to neutral. However, if tested individually, an increase in soil temperature and fertility per se positively affected plant biomass production, whereas soil biota per se did not affect overall plant growth, but both influenced root architecture. By affecting soil microbial activity and root architecture, soil temperature might influence both mutualistic and pathogenic interactions between plants and soil biota. Such soil temperature effects should be considered in soil feedback studies to ensure greater transferability of results from artificial and experimental conditions to natural environmental conditions.
KW  - plant-soil interaction
KW  - soil biota
KW  - abiotic soil factors
KW  - root traits
KW  - plant growth
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1093/jpe/rtw097
SN  - 1752-9921
SN  - 1752-993X
VL  - 10
SP  - 808
EP  - 821
PB  - Oxford Univ. Press
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Müller, Jörg
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
A1  - Joshi, Jasmin Radha
A1  - Boch, Steffen
A1  - Klaus, Valentin H.
A1  - Fischer, Markus
A1  - Prati, Daniel
T1  - Influence of experimental soil disturbances on the diversity of plants in agricultural grasslands
JF  - Journal of plant ecology
N2  - Disturbance is supposed to play an important role for biodiversity and ecosystem stability as described by the intermediate disturbance hypothesis (IDH), which predicts highest species richness at intermediate levels of disturbances. In this study, we tested the effects of artificial soil disturbances on diversity of annual and perennial vascular plants and bryophytes in a field experiment in 86 agricultural grasslands differing in land use in two regions of Germany. On each grassland, we implemented four treatments: three treatments differing in application time of soil disturbances and one control. One year after experimental disturbance, we recorded vegetation and measured biomass productivity and bare ground. We analysed the disturbance response taking effects of region and land-use-accompanied disturbance regimes into account.
 Region and land-use type strongly determined plant species richness. Experimental disturbances had small positive effects on the species richness of annuals, but none on perennials or bryophytes. Bare ground was positively related to species richness of bryophytes. However, exceeding the creation of 12% bare ground further disturbance had a detrimental effect on bryophyte species richness, which corresponds to the IDH. As biomass productivity was unaffected by disturbance our results indicate that the disturbance effect on species richness of annuals was not due to decreased overall productivity, but rather due to short-term lowered inter- and intraspecific competition at the newly created microsites.
 Generally, our results highlight the importance of soil disturbances for species richness of annual plants and bryophytes in agricultural grasslands. However, most grasslands were disturbed naturally or by land-use practices and our additional experimental soil disturbances only had a small short-term effect. Overall, total plant diversity in grasslands seemed to be more limited by the availability of propagules rather than by suitable microsites for germination. Thus, nature conservation efforts to increase grassland diversity should focus on overcoming propagule limitation, for instance by additional sowing of seeds, while the creation of additional open patches by disturbance might only be appropriate where natural disturbances are scarce.
KW  - annuals
KW  - bryophytes
KW  - colonization
KW  - intermediate disturbance hypothesis
KW  - microsites
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1093/jpe/rtt062
SN  - 1752-9921
SN  - 1752-993X
VL  - 7
IS  - 6
SP  - 509
EP  - 517
PB  - Oxford Univ. Press
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
A1  - Werner, Tony
A1  - Weber, Ewald
A1  - Rillig, Matthias C.
A1  - Joshi, Jasmin Radha
T1  - Soil biota effects on local abundances of three grass species along a land-use gradient
JF  - Oecologia
N2  - Biotic plant-soil interactions and land-use intensity are known to affect plant individual fitness as well as competitiveness and therefore plant-species abundances in communities. Therefore, a link between soil biota and land-use intensity on local abundance of plant species in grasslands can be expected. In two greenhouse experiments, we investigated the effects of soil biota from grassland sites differing in land-use intensity on three grass species that vary in local abundances along this land-use gradient. We were interested in those soil-biota effects that are associated with land-use intensity, and whether these effects act directly or indirectly. Therefore, we grew the three plant species in two separate experiments as single individuals and in mixtures and compared their performance. As single plants, all three grasses showed a similar performance with and without soil biota. In contrast, in mixtures growth of the species in response to the presence or absence of soil biota differed. This resulted in different soil-biota effects that tend to correspond with patterns of species-specific abundances in the field for two of the three species tested. Our results highlight the importance of indirect interactions between plants and soil microorganisms and suggest that combined effects of soil biota and plant-plant interactions are involved in structuring plant communities. In conclusion, our experiments suggest that soil biota may have the potential to alter effects of plant-plant interactions and therefore influence plant-species abundances and diversity in grasslands.
KW  - Biodiversity
KW  - Grassland
KW  - Land-use intensity
KW  - Community composition
KW  - Plant-soil feedback
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-015-3336-0
SN  - 0029-8549
SN  - 1432-1939
VL  - 179
IS  - 1
SP  - 249
EP  - 259
PB  - Springer
CY  - New York
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Bergmann, Joana
A1  - Verbruggen, Erik
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
A1  - Xiang, Dan
A1  - Chen, Baodong
A1  - Joshi, Jasmin Radha
A1  - Rillig, Matthias C.
T1  - The interplay between soil structure, roots, and microbiota as a determinant of plant-soil feedback
JF  - Ecology and evolution
N2  - Plant-soil feedback (PSF) can influence plant community structure via changes in the soil microbiome. However, how these feedbacks depend on the soil environment remains poorly understood. We hypothesized that disintegrating a naturally aggregated soil may influence the outcome of PSF by affecting microbial communities. Furthermore, we expected plants to differentially interact with soil structure and the microbial communities due to varying root morphology. We carried out a feedback experiment with nine plant species (five forbs and four grasses) where the training phase consisted of aggregated versus disintegrated soil. In the feedback phase, a uniform soil was inoculated in a fully factorial design with soil washings from conspecific- versus heterospecific-trained soil that had been either disintegrated or aggregated. This way, the effects of prior soil structure on plant performance in terms of biomass production and allocation were examined. In the training phase, soil structure did not affect plant biomass. But on disintegrated soil, plants with lower specific root length (SRL) allocated more biomass aboveground. PSF in the feedback phase was negative overall. With training on disintegrated soil, conspecific feedback was positively correlated with SRL and significantly differed between grasses and forbs. Plants with higher SRL were likely able to easily explore the disintegrated soil with smaller pores, while plants with lower SRL invested in belowground biomass for soil exploration and seemed to be more susceptible to fungal pathogens. This suggests that plants with low SRL could be more limited by PSF on disintegrated soils of early successional stages. This study is the first to examine the influence of soil structure on PSF. Our results suggest that soil structure determines the outcome of PSF mediated by SRL. We recommend to further explore the effects of soil structure and propose to include root performance when working with PSF.
KW  - arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
KW  - biomass allocation
KW  - plant functional traits
KW  - plant-soil (belowground) interactions
KW  - soil aggregation
KW  - specific root length
KW  - succession
KW  - water-stable aggregates
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.2456
SN  - 2045-7758
VL  - 6
SP  - 7633
EP  - 7644
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
A1  - Sitte, Mario
A1  - Schindhelm, Anne
A1  - Wright, J.
A1  - Joshi, Jasmin Radha
T1  - Plant-soil feedbacks: a comparative study on the relative importance of soil feedbacks in the greenhouse versus the field
JF  - Oecologia
N2  - Interactions between plants and soil microorganisms influence individual plant performance and thus plant-community composition. Most studies on such plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) have been performed under controlled greenhouse conditions, whereas no study has directly compared PSFs under greenhouse and natural field conditions. We grew three grass species that differ in local abundance in grassland communities simultaneously in the greenhouse and field on field-collected soils either previously conditioned by these species or by the general grassland community. As soils in grasslands are typically conditioned by mixes of species through the patchy and heterogeneous plant species’ distributions, we additionally compared the effects of species-specific versus non-specific species conditioning on PSFs in natural and greenhouse conditions. In almost all comparisons PSFs differed between the greenhouse and field. In the greenhouse, plant growth in species-specific and non-specific soils resulted in similar effects with neutral PSFs for the most abundant species and positive PSFs for the less abundant species. In contrast, in the field all grass species tested performed best in non-specific plots, whereas species-specific PSFs were neutral for the most abundant and varied for the less abundant species. This indicates a general beneficial effect of plant diversity on PSFs in the field. Controlled greenhouse conditions might provide valuable insights on the nominal effects of soils on plants. However, the PSFs observed in greenhouse conditions may not be the determining drivers in natural plant communities where their effects may be overwhelmed by the diversity of abiotic and biotic above- and belowground interactions in the field.
KW  - Grassland
KW  - Plant performance
KW  - Experimental environment
KW  - Community assembly
KW  - Plant diversity
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-016-3591-8
SN  - 0029-8549
SN  - 1432-1939
VL  - 181
SP  - 559
EP  - 569
PB  - Springer
CY  - New York
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
A1  - Bergmann, Joana
A1  - Rillig, Matthias C.
A1  - Joshi, Jasmin Radha
T1  - Negative biotic soil-effects enhance biodiversity by restricting potentially dominant plant species in grasslands
JF  - Perspectives in plant ecology, evolution and systematics
N2  - Interactions between soil microorganisms and plants can play a vital role for plant fitness and therefore also for plant community composition and biodiversity. However, little is known about how biotic plant soil interactions influence the local dominance and abundance of plant species and whether specific taxonomic or functional groups of plants are differentially affected by such biotic soil-effects. In two greenhouse experiments, we tested the biotic soil-effects of 33 grassland species differing in individual size and local abundance. We hypothesized that large plants that are not locally dominant (despite their size-related competitive advantage enabling them to potentially outshade competitors) are most strongly limited by negative biotic soil-effects. We sampled soils at the opposite ends of a gradient in land-use intensity in temperate grasslands to account for putative modulating effects of land-use intensity on biotic soil-effects.
 As hypothesized, large, but non-dominant species (especially grasses) experienced more negative biotic soil-effects compared with small and abundant plant species. Land-use intensity had contrasting effects on grasses and herbs resulting in more negative biotic soil-effects for grasses in less intensively managed grasslands. We conclude that biotic soil-effects contribute to the control of potentially dominant plants and hence enable species coexistence and biodiversity especially in species-rich less intensively managed grasslands.
KW  - Coexistence mechanisms
KW  - Plant soil feedbacks
KW  - Individual size
KW  - Local plant-abundance
KW  - Grassland diversity
KW  - Land-use intensity
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ppees.2015.03.002
SN  - 1433-8319
VL  - 17
IS  - 3
SP  - 227
EP  - 235
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Jena
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
A1  - Simons, Nadja K.
A1  - Seibold, Sebastian
A1  - Wacker, Alexander
A1  - Weithoff, Guntram
A1  - Gossner, Martin M.
A1  - Prati, Daniel
A1  - Bezemer, T. Martijn
A1  - Joshi, Jasmin Radha
T1  - The relative importance of plant-soil feedbacks for plant-species performance increases with decreasing intensity of herbivory
JF  - Oecologia
N2  - Under natural conditions, aboveground herbivory and plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) are omnipresent interactions strongly affecting individual plant performance. While recent research revealed that aboveground insect herbivory generally impacts the outcome of PSFs, no study tested to what extent the intensity of herbivory affects the outcome. This, however, is essential to estimate the contribution of PSFs to plant performance under natural conditions in the field. Here, we tested PSF effects both with and without exposure to aboveground herbivory for four common grass species in nine grasslands that formed a gradient of aboveground invertebrate herbivory. Without aboveground herbivores, PSFs for each of the four grass species were similar in each of the nine grasslands-both in direction and in magnitude. In the presence of herbivores, however, the PSFs differed from those measured under herbivory exclusion, and depended on the intensity of herbivory. At low levels of herbivory, PSFs were similar in the presence and absence of herbivores, but differed at high herbivory levels. While PSFs without herbivores remained similar along the gradient of herbivory intensity, increasing herbivory intensity mostly resulted in neutral PSFs in the presence of herbivores. This suggests that the relative importance of PSFs for plant-species performance in grassland communities decreases with increasing intensity of herbivory. Hence, PSFs might be more important for plant performance in ecosystems with low herbivore pressure than in ecosystems with large impacts of insect herbivores.
KW  - Plant-soil feedback
KW  - Herbivorous insects
KW  - Field conditions
KW  - Selective herbivory
KW  - Nutritional quality
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-019-04442-9
SN  - 0029-8549
SN  - 1432-1939
VL  - 190
IS  - 3
SP  - 651
EP  - 664
PB  - Springer
CY  - New York
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Werger, Luise
A1  - Bergmann, Joana
A1  - Weber, Ewald
A1  - Heinze, Johannes
T1  - Wind intensity affects fine root morphological traits with consequences for plant-soil feedback effects
T2  - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe
N2  - Wind influences the development, architecture and morphology of plant roots and may modify subsequent interactions between plants and soil (plant–soil feedbacks—PSFs). However, information on wind effects on fine root morphology is scarce and the extent to which wind changes plant–soil interactions remains unclear. Therefore, we investigated the effects of two wind intensity levels by manipulating surrounding vegetation height in a grassland PSF field experiment. We grew four common plant species (two grasses and two non-leguminous forbs) with soil biota either previously conditioned by these or other species and tested the effect of wind on root:shoot ratio, fine root morphological traits as well as the outcome for PSFs. Wind intensity did not affect biomass allocation (i.e. root:shoot ratio) in any species. However, fine-root morphology of all species changed under high wind intensity. High wind intensity increased specific root length and surface area and decreased root tissue density, especially in the two grasses. Similarly, the direction of PSFs changed under high wind intensity in all four species, but differences in biomass production on the different soils between high and low wind intensity were marginal and most pronounced when comparing grasses with forbs. Because soils did not differ in plant-available nor total nutrient content, the results suggest that wind-induced changes in root morphology have the potential to influence plant–soil interactions. Linking wind-induced changes in fine-root morphology to effects on PSF improves our understanding of plant–soil interactions under changing environmental conditions.
T3  - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1019 
KW  - Wind
KW  - root traits
KW  - root morphology
KW  - specific root length
KW  - plant–soil feedback
Y1  - 2020
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-484092
SN  - 1866-8372
IS  - 1019
ER  -