Fungi influencing vegetation succession through plant-soil feedbacks

Understanding the processes underlying forest ecosystem succession following severe disturbances is critical for informing ecological restoration methods. Plants alter soil biological communities, generating plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) that affect the performance of successive plants, influencing plant community assembly and successional trajectories. Yet, our understanding of how PSFs mediated by soil microbes influence succession is limited for primary successional systems and forest ecosystems, particularly for ectomycorrhizal plants. In a two-phase greenhouse experiment, we investigated the role of root fungal symbionts in PSFs promoting forest succession in primary successional mine reclamation materials and later successional forest soils.