Invasive Plants Rapidly Reshape Soil Properties in a Grassland Ecosystem.

ABSTRACT: Plant invasions often reduce native plant diversity and increase net primary productivity. Invaded soils appear to differ from surrounding soils in ways that impede restoration of diverse native plant communities. We hypothesize that invader-mediated shifts in edaphic properties reproducibly alter soil microbial community structure and function. Here, we take a holistic approach, characterizing plant, prokaryotic, and fungal communities and soil physicochemical properties in field sites, invasion gradients, and experimental plots for three invasive plant species that cooccur in the Rocky Mountain West. Each invader had a unique impact on soil physicochemical properties. We found that invasions drove shifts in the abundances of specific microbial taxa, while overall belowground community st

SUBMITTER: Gibbons SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5340861 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar-Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature