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Updated: May 19, 2026
08:16
Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity
Published on: March 13, 2014
Abiotic drivers and plant traits explain landscape-scale patterns in soil microbial communities
Franciska T de Vries1, Pete Manning2, Jerry R B Tallowin3
1Soil and Ecosystem Ecology Laboratory, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, UK.
Ecology Letters
|August 14, 2012
Summary
Soil microbial communities are influenced by both climate and soil properties. Plant traits also shape these belowground ecosystems, with exploitative traits linked to bacterial dominance and conservative traits to fungal dominance.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Soil Science
- Microbiology
Background:
- Aboveground community composition is well-studied, but belowground microbial communities remain less understood.
- Microbial communities are crucial for ecosystem functioning.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify the drivers of landscape-scale variation in soil microbial community composition.
- To investigate the relationship between plant functional traits and soil microbial communities.
Main Methods:
- Statistical models were fitted to data from 180 grassland sites in England.
- Analysis considered abiotic factors (climate, pH, soil properties) and biotic factors (plant functional traits).
Main Results:
- Abiotic factors significantly explained variation in soil microbial communities.
- Plant functional traits, specifically community-weighted means (CWM), also influenced microbial composition.
- Bacterial-dominated communities correlated with exploitative plant traits, while fungal-dominated communities correlated with resource-conservative traits.
Conclusions:
- Both abiotic and biotic factors, including plant functional traits, are key drivers of soil microbial community structure at the landscape scale.
- Plant traits and soil microbial communities exhibit a close relationship in grassland ecosystems.
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