Contrasting effects of soil microbial interactions on growth-defence relationships between early- and mid-successional plant communities.

ABSTRACT: Plants allocate resources to processes related to growth and enemy defence. Simultaneously, they interact with complex soil microbiomes that also affect plant performance. While the influence of individual microbial groups on single plants is increasingly studied, effects of microbial interactions on growth, defence and growth-defence relationships remain unknown, especially at the plant community level. We investigated how three microbial groups (bacteria, fungi, protists), alone and in full-factorial combinations, affect plant performance and potential growth-defence relationships by measuring phenolics composition in early- and mid-successional grass and forb communities in a glasshouse experiment. Microbial groups did not affect plant growth and only fungi increased defence compounds i

SUBMITTER: Geisen S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9292498 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature