Soil chemistry drives below ground traits in an alternate successional pathway from forest to heath

To understand impacts of post-disturbance assembly mechanisms on the functional diversity (FD) of plant communities, it is necessary to determine how the environment drives their functional trait composition. In the boreal forest, post-fire abiotic filters may control community assembly by selecting plants with specific traits. Ericaceous heaths are characterized by low FD and are thought to be subject to such filters. We hypothesized that soil parameters select for a specific suite of traits and act as a secondary abiotic filter in post-fire ericaceous heath and contribute to the observed reduction of FD. We measured six soil parameters, five functional traits, and plant species abundances in eight post-fire heath and four regenerating forest sites in Eastern Canada. We conducted a combined analysis of RLQ (R-table Linked to Q-table) and fourth-corner methods to examine the links between plant traits and plot-level soil parameters, mediated by species abundances. Only below ground traits were significantly linked to soil variables. Specific root length and ericoid mycorrhizal associations were negatively linked to total soil nitrogen, available ammonium, and pH. Post-fire heath soils favour a specific suite of species traits. Only a portion of the regional species pool possesses the above-mentioned traits, and when they are favoured by habitat conditions, they assemble into a community with low FD. The novelty of our study is here we show how the relationship between traits and soil chemistry can act as a secondary filter and exert community-level trait changes responsible for the low functional diversity observed in heaths.