Spatial heterogeneity in soil particle size: does it affect the yield of plant communities with different species richness?

doi:10.1093/jpe/rtv082

Abstract

Abstract: Aims Soil heterogeneity is ubiquitous in many ecosystems. We hypothesized that plant communities with higher species richness might be better adapted to soil heterogeneity and produce more biomass than those with lower richness. This is because there is niche differentiation among species and different species can complement each other and occupy a broader range of niches when plant species richness is high. However, no study has tested how soil particle heterogeneity affects the yield of plant communities, and whether such effects depend on the spatial scale of the heterogeneity and the species richness within the communities.
Methods In a greenhouse experiment, we sowed seeds of four-species or eight-species mixtures in three heterogeneous treatments consisting of 32, 8 or 2 patches of both small (1.5mm) and large quartz (3.0mm) particles arranged in a chessboard manner and one homogeneous treatment with an even mixture of small and large quartz particles.
Important findings Biomass production was significantly greater in the communities with high species richness than those with low species richness. However, soil particle heterogeneity or its interactions with patch scale or species richness did not significantly affect biomass production of the experimental communities. This work indicates that plant species richness may have a bigger impact on plant productivity than soil particle heterogeneity. Further studies should consider multiple sets of plant species during longer time periods to unravel the potential mechanisms of soil heterogeneity and its interactions with the impacts of species richness on community yield and species coexistence.

Key words: diversity effect, experimental communities, environmental heterogeneity, patch size, soil particle heterogeneity, spatial scale

摘要：
Aims Soil heterogeneity is ubiquitous in many ecosystems. We hypothesized that plant communities with higher species richness might be better adapted to soil heterogeneity and produce more biomass than those with lower richness. This is because there is niche differentiation among species and different species can complement each other and occupy a broader range of niches when plant species richness is high. However, no study has tested how soil particle heterogeneity affects the yield of plant communities, and whether such effects depend on the spatial scale of the heterogeneity and the species richness within the communities.
Methods In a greenhouse experiment, we sowed seeds of four-species or eight-species mixtures in three heterogeneous treatments consisting of 32, 8 or 2 patches of both small (1.5mm) and large quartz (3.0mm) particles arranged in a chessboard manner and one homogeneous treatment with an even mixture of small and large quartz particles.
Important findings Biomass production was significantly greater in the communities with high species richness than those with low species richness. However, soil particle heterogeneity or its interactions with patch scale or species richness did not significantly affect biomass production of the experimental communities. This work indicates that plant species richness may have a bigger impact on plant productivity than soil particle heterogeneity. Further studies should consider multiple sets of plant species during longer time periods to unravel the potential mechanisms of soil heterogeneity and its interactions with the impacts of species richness on community yield and species coexistence.

Wei Xue, Lin Huang, Fei-Hai Yu. Spatial heterogeneity in soil particle size: does it affect the yield of plant communities with different species richness?[J]. J Plant Ecol, 2016, 9(5): 608-615.

[1]	Yurui Jiang, Lifeng Wang, Huaibin Wang, Rui Cao, Zhuang Wang, Qin Wang, Weizhong Li, Wanqin Yang. Typhoon-induced litter on lawns and soil surfaces exhibit divergent decomposition patterns [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2026, 19(1): 1-.
[2]	Hao-Ming Yuan, Wei Xue , Sergio Roiloa Jun Yao and Fei-Hai Yu. Increasing biochar diversity promotes the impacts of plant diversity on remediating cadmium in soil [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2024, 17(6): 1-rtae068.
[3]	Yongjie Liu, Chunyan Ma, Shiting Liu, Mingrui Liu, Hui Li, Mingxia Wang, Guoe Li, Hans J. De Boeck, Fujiang Hou, Zhanhui Tang, Zhenxin Li. Neighbour effects on plant biomass and its allocation for forbs growing in heterogeneous soils [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2024, 17(4): 0-rtae056.
[4]	Yanhui Hou, Xiaona Li, Yanxia Hu, Xuwei Lu, Yue Ma, Wenmin Li, Xiran Lv, Zimo Li, Yaxuan Bai, Chao Wang. Drought weakens the positive effect of plant diversity on community biomass [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2024, 17(4): 0-rtae059.
[5]	Yong-Gang Li, Xiao-Bing Zhou, Yongxing Lu, Yuan-Ming Zhang. Moss C, N, P and K stoichiometry and their relationships are related to soil nutrients and environment in a temperate desert of central Asia [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2023, 16(3): 0-rtac070.
[6]	Wei Xue, Si-Mei Yao, Lin Huang, Sergio R. Roiloa, Bao-Ming Ji and Fei-Hai Yu. Current plant diversity but not its soil legacy influences exotic plant invasion [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2022, 15(3): 639-649.
[7]	Ricardo Sánchez-Martín, José Maria Gómez, Pierre-Olivier Cheptou and Rafael Rubio de Casas. Differences in seed dormancy and germination in amphicarpic legumes: manifold bet-hedging in space and time [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2021, 14(4): 662-672.
[8]	Anna Kirschbaum, Oliver Bossdorf and J. F. Scheepens. Variation in regrowth ability in relation to land-use intensity in three common grassland herbs [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2021, 14(3): 438-450.
[9]	Chris M. McGrannachan, Gillis J. Horner and Melodie A. McGeoch. Scale dependence in the phylogenetic relatedness of alien and native taxa [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2020, 13(5): 601-610.
[10]	Xin Jing, Case M. Prager, Aimée T. Classen, Fernando T. Maestre, Jin-Sheng He and Nathan J. Sanders. Variation in the methods leads to variation in the interpretation of biodiversity–ecosystem multifunctionality relationships [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2020, 13(4): 431-441.
[11]	Yuting Lin, Achyut Kumar Banerjee, Haidan Wu, Fengxiao Tan, Hui Feng, Guangwen Tan, Wuxia Guo and Yelin Huang. Prominent genetic structure across native and introduced ranges of Pluchea indica, a mangrove associate, as revealed by microsatellite markers [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2020, 13(3): 341-353.
[12]	Wei Xue, Lin Huang and Fei-Hai Yu. Importance of starting points in heterogeneous environments: interactions between two clonal plants with contrasting spatial architectures [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2020, 13(3): 323-330.
[13]	Věroslava Hadincová, Hana Skálová and Zuzana Münzbergová. Genotypic diversity and genotype identity of resident species drive community composition [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2020, 13(2): 224-232.
[14]	Ke Cao, Xiangcheng Mi, Liwen Zhang, Haibao Ren, Mingjian Yu, Jianhua Chen, Jintun Zhang and Keping Ma. Examining residual spatial correlation in variation partitioning of beta diversity in a subtropical forest [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2019, 12(4): 636-644.
[15]	Xiaolong Zhou, Xudong Liu, Pengfei Zhang, Zhi Guo and Guozhen Du. Increased community compositional dissimilarity alleviates species loss following nutrient enrichment at large spatial scales [J]. J Plant Ecol, 2019, 12(2): 376-386.