Complementarity and selection effects in early and mid-successional plant communities are differentially affected by plant-soil feedback

1. Many studies that provided evidence for a positive relationship between plant diversity and productivity have proposed that this effect may be explained by complementarity among species in resources utilization, or selection of particularly productive species in high-diversity plant communities. Recent studies have related the higher productivity in diverse plant communities to suppression of pathogenic soil biota. If soil biota plays a role in diversity–productivity relationships, the question remains about how they may influence complementarity and selection effects. 2. Here we examine how complementarity and selection effects may depend on soil biota using a plant–soil feedback approach. We used monocultures and mixtures of early successional plant species, which are known to have mostly negative plant–soil feedback effects, and mid-successional plant species, which generally have neutral plant–soil feedback. 3. We found that plant–soil feedback effects differed between monocultur...