Steering the soil microbiome by repeated litter addition

1. Microbial communities drive plant litter breakdown. Litters originating from different plant species are often associated with specialized microbiomes that accelerate the breakdown of that litter, known as home-field advantage. Yet, how and how fast microbial communities specialize towards litter inputs is not known.
2. Here we study effects of repeated litter additions on soil microbial community structure and functioning. We set up a nine-month, full-factorial, reciprocal litter transplant experiment with soils and litters from six plant species (three grasses, three trees). We measured fungal and bacterial community composition, litter mass loss and home-field effects.
3. We found that repeated litter additions resulted in convergence in fungal community composition driven by litter functional group (trees versus grasses). Grasses enriched Sordariomycetes, while Tremellomycetes, Eurotiomycetes, and Leotiomycetes were favored by tree litter. Bacterial community composition, litter ...