Plant communities mediate the interactive effects of invasion and drought on soil microbial communities.

ABSTRACT: Soil microbiomes could play a major role in ecosystem responses to escalating anthropogenic global change. However, we currently have a poor understanding of how soil microbes will respond to interacting global change factors and if responses will be mediated by changes in plant community structure. We used a field experiment to assess changes in soil fungal and bacterial communities in response to plant invasion, experimental drought, and their combination. In addition, we evaluated the relative importance of direct versus indirect pathways of invasion and drought through changes in associated plant communities with structural equation models. We found that fungal communities were interactively structured by invasion and drought, where fungal richness was lowest with invasion under ambien

SUBMITTER: Fahey C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7242364 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature