Testing the relative roles of competition and plant-soil feedbacks in explaining commonness and rarity of native and of alien plant species

• Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Mark van Kleunen, seit 1/2016
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Ökologie und Biodiversität der Pflanzen und Ökosysteme
• Förderung: Förderung von 2012 bis 2015
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 227595979

Differences among species in effects of intraspecific competition and plant-soil feedbacks may explain why some alien and native plant species become more abundant than others. The proposed project has three main objectives. First, we will test whether performance of common native and alien plants is affected less by frequency-dependent plant-soil feedbacks and competition, than for rare native and alien plants. We will do this by growing these target species at varying relative frequencies in a community for a first phase. Then we will grow them in a second phase at varying frequencies in the phase-1 soils, yielding fully orthogonal, frequency-dependent plant-soil feedback and intraspecific competition treatments. Second, we will test how soil fungal pathogens and intraspecific competition differ in their effects on per capita population growth rates of common and rare native and alien annual plant species. We will do this by growing native and alien annual plant species over two generations at high and low initial frequencies in a two-species community, with and without soil fungicide. Third, we will test if disturbance, release from soil pathogens or both combined explain the ability of alien and native species to establish in a community. We will do this by planting seedlings of common and rare native and invasive and non-invasive alien species into an established native grassland community, with and without soil fungicide treatment, and with low and high levels of disturbance. These studies will provide novel insights into the relative roles of competition and plant-soil feedbacks in explaining plant species abundance.

• DFG-Verfahren: Sachbeihilfen
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Dr. Wayne Dawson, bis 12/2015