Escape from harmful soil biota at high elevations: Plant-soil feedbacks along stress gradients

Plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) have strong effects on plant community diversity and composition, but we know less about how the abiotic environment alters PSFs.  In the context of the Stress Gradient Hypothesis (SGH) we predicted less negative PSFs in alpine vs. prairie systems and tested this with three alpine and four prairie species and soil from three elevational gradients in western Montana, USA.  All species were smaller when grown in prairie soil than in alpine soil, and sterilization of soil increased the growth only of alpine species in prairie soil.  Training prairie soil with conspecifics decreased the biomass of both alpine and prairie species, but training alpine soil had no effect.  PSFs were three times more negative when plants were grown in low-elevation prairie soils than in alpine soils.  Consistent with the original ideas for the SGH, the frequency of positive PSFs were higher in alpine soil than in prairie soil and the frequency of negative PSF..., , , # Data from: Escape from harmful soil biota at high elevations: Plant-soil feedbacks along stress gradients

\[[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pk0p2ngws](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pk0p2ngws)]( [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pk0p2ngws](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pk0p2ngws))

## Description of the data and file structure

This dataset includes two data sheets. The first data sheet is named as “Alpine_project_data_Total_biomass.xlsx”. The second data sheet is named as “Alpine_project_data_PSF_Training.xlsx”. All analyses were conducted using R version 4.3.

### (1) Alpine\_project\_data\_Total\_biomass.xlsx

This contains data for the total biomass of alpine species and non-alpine species grown in the two-phase plant soil feedback (PFS) experiment respectively.

Site: three distinct alpine sites and three paired sites in intermontane grasslands (referred to as prairie sites hereafter).

Soil_Origin: soil from alpine site or from prairie sites (non-alpine).

Species: species used in t...,