TY - JOUR
T1 - Pervasive and strong effects of plants on soil chemistry
T2 - A meta-analysis of individual plant ‘zinke’ effects
AU - Waring, Bonnie
AU - Álvarez-Cansino, Leonor
AU - Barry, Kathryn E.
AU - Becklund, Kristen K.
AU - Dale, Sarah
AU - Gei, Maria G
AU - Keller, Adrienne B.
AU - Lopez, Omar R.
AU - Markesteijn, Lars
AU - Mangan, Scott
AU - Riggs, Charlotte E
AU - Rodríguez-Ronderos, María Elizabeth
AU - Max Segnitz, R.
AU - Schnitzer, Stefan A.
AU - Powers, Jennifer S
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2015/7/29
Y1 - 2015/7/29
N2 - Plant species leave a chemical signature in the soils below them, generating fine-scale spatial variation that drives ecological processes. Since the publication of a seminal paper on plant-mediated soil heterogeneity by Paul Zinke in 1962, a robust literature has developed examining effects of individual plants on their local environments (individual plant effects). Here, we synthesize this work using meta-analysis to show that plant effects are strong and pervasive across ecosystems on six continents. Overall, soil properties beneath individual plants differ from those of neighbours by an average of 41%. Although the magnitudes of individual plant effects exhibit weak relationships with climate and latitude, they are significantly stronger in deserts and tundra than forests, and weaker in intensively managed ecosystems. The ubiquitous effects of plant individuals and species on local soil properties imply that individual plant effects have a role in plant–soil feedbacks, linking individual plants with biogeochemical processes at the ecosystem scale.
AB - Plant species leave a chemical signature in the soils below them, generating fine-scale spatial variation that drives ecological processes. Since the publication of a seminal paper on plant-mediated soil heterogeneity by Paul Zinke in 1962, a robust literature has developed examining effects of individual plants on their local environments (individual plant effects). Here, we synthesize this work using meta-analysis to show that plant effects are strong and pervasive across ecosystems on six continents. Overall, soil properties beneath individual plants differ from those of neighbours by an average of 41%. Although the magnitudes of individual plant effects exhibit weak relationships with climate and latitude, they are significantly stronger in deserts and tundra than forests, and weaker in intensively managed ecosystems. The ubiquitous effects of plant individuals and species on local soil properties imply that individual plant effects have a role in plant–soil feedbacks, linking individual plants with biogeochemical processes at the ecosystem scale.
KW - Individual plant effects
KW - Plant–soil interactions
KW - Spatial heterogeneity
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84938358185
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84938358185#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1098/rspb.2015.1001
DO - 10.1098/rspb.2015.1001
M3 - Article
C2 - 26224711
AN - SCOPUS:84938358185
SN - 0962-8452
VL - 282
JO - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
JF - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
IS - 1812
M1 - 20151001
ER -