Genetic diversity and species diversity weaken plant-soil
feedback-mediated coexistence
Abstract
Theory suggests that genetic diversity may influence species coexistence
and that species diversity may influence genotype coexistence by
altering competitive outcomes among species and genotypes, respectively.
However, other coexistence mechanisms such as microbe-mediated
plant-soil feedbacks (PSF), may also contribute. Interspecific PSF
promotes species coexistence when plants grow better with heterospecific
soil microbes than with conspecific microbes, and similarly,
intraspecific PSF promotes genotype coexistence when plants grow better
with heterogenotypic than with congenotypic microbes. Here, we tested
whether genetic diversity influences the strength or direction of
interspecific PSF and whether species diversity influences the strength
or direction of intraspecific PSF. We found that genetic diversity
reduced the capacity for interspecific PSF to promote species
coexistence, and, for one study species, species diversity reduced the
capacity for intraspecific PSF to promote genotype coexistence. These
results suggest that genetic diversity and species diversity may weaken
the ability of PSF to promote coexistence.