Abstract
Plant species that expand their range in response to current climate change will encounter soil communities that may hinder, allow or even facilitate plant performance. It has been shown repeatedly for plant species originating from other continents that these plants are less hampered by soil communities from the new than from the original range. However, information about the interactions between intra‐continental range expanders and soil communities is sparse, especially at community level.Here we used a plant–soil feedback experiment approach to examine if the interactions between range expanders and soil communities change during range expansion. We grew communities of range‐expanding and native plant species with soil communities originating from the original and new range of range expanders. In these conditioned soils, we determined the composition of fungi and bacteria by high‐throughput amplicon sequencing of the ITS region and the 16S rRNA gene respectively. Nematode community composition was determined by microscopy‐based morphological identification. Then we tested how these soil communities influence the growth of subsequent communities of range expanders and natives.We found that after the conditioning phase soil bacterial, fungal and nematode communities differed by origin and by conditioning plant communities. Despite differences in bacterial, fungal and nematode communities between original and new range, soil origin did not influence the biomass production of plant communities. Both native and range expanding plant communities produced most above‐ground biomass in soils that were conditioned by plant communities distantly related to them. Synthesis. Communities of range‐expanding plant species shape specific soil communities in both original and new range soil. Plant–soil interactions of range expanders in communities can be similar to the ones of their closely related native plant species.
Highlights
An increasing number of plant species have expanded their range and established in habitats at higher altitudes and latitudes (Lenoir, Gegout, Marquet, de Ruffray, & Brisse, 2008; Parmesan & Yohe, 2003; Walther et al, 2002). These range-expanding plant species, which move in response to climate change, can be considered native in their new range as the process of range expansion is occurring naturally; even so, these species need to be distinguished from historically native species as they can possess characteristics that are ecologically novel in their new range (Essl et al, 2019)
We examined if plant–soil interactions are determined by the origin of soil communities and plant species by comparing the growth of native plant species and related range expanders in a greenhouse mesocosm experiment
We show that the influence of range expanders on soil organisms and their community-level response to soil organisms may depend on their degree of relatedness to the native flora
Summary
An increasing number of plant species have expanded their range and established in habitats at higher altitudes and latitudes (Lenoir, Gegout, Marquet, de Ruffray, & Brisse, 2008; Parmesan & Yohe, 2003; Walther et al, 2002). We can expect that range expanders without native congeneric plant species in their new range (hereafter: unrelated range expanders) will experience less negative effects of soil biota in their new range than related range expanders, as the soil biota might not be familiar with their novel plant morphological and chemical root traits (Wilschut, Silva, Garbeva, & van der Putten, 2017). It is not known if the presence or absence of a congeneric native species would indicate the outcome of plant–soil feedback of range-expanding plant species across ranges. We tested the hypotheses that: (a) range expanders, and especially unrelated range expanders, associate with distinctive fungal, bacterial and nematode communities in their original compared to new range soil, while no such difference in soil communities between ranges exists for natives; (b) range expanders, and especially unrelated range expanders, cultivate higher numbers of pathogenic fungi and root-feeding nematodes in their original, compared to new range soil, while no such difference exists for natives; (c) plant–soil feedback of range expanders, and especially unrelated range expanders, is less negative in their new than in their original range soil while plant–soil feedback of natives does not differ between ranges and (d) positive plant–soil feedback of range expanders, and especially of unrelated range expanders, in soils from the new range gives them competitive advantage in mixtures with natives, but not with other range expanders
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