Spatial heterogeneity of plant-soil feedbacks increases per capita reproductive biomass of species at an establishment disadvantage

Plant–soil feedbacks have been widely implicated as a driver of plant community diversity, and the coexistence prediction generated by a negative plant–soil feedback can be tested using the mutual invasibility criterion: if two populations are able to invade one another, this result is consistent with stable coexistence. We previously showed that two co-occurring Rumex species exhibit negative pairwise plant–soil feedbacks, predicting that plant–soil feedbacks could lead to their coexistence. However, whether plants are able to reproduce when at an establishment disadvantage (“invasibility”), or what drivers in the soil might correlate with this pattern, are unknown. To address these questions, we created experimental plots with heterogeneous and homogeneous soils using field-collected conditioned soils from each of these Rumex species. We then allowed resident plants of each species to establish and added invader seeds of the congener to evaluate invasibility. Rumex congeners were mutu...植物-土壤反馈（Plant–soil feedbacks）已被广泛证实为植物群落多样性的关键驱动因子，由负向植物-土壤反馈推导得出的共存预测，可通过相互入侵准则进行验证：若两个种群能够实现相互入侵，则该结果与稳定共存的理论预期一致。我们先前的研究表明，两种同域分布的酸模属（Rumex）植物存在成对负向植物-土壤反馈，据此推测植物-土壤反馈或许能够促成二者的稳定共存。然而，目前仍不清楚处于定植劣势状态下的植物是否能够完成繁殖（即所谓的“入侵性”），亦或是土壤中的哪些调控因子与该现象存在关联。为解答上述问题，我们利用从这两种酸模属植物各自的驯化土壤中野外采集的样本，搭建了包含异质土壤与均质土壤的实验样地。随后我们先促使各物种的定居植株完成定植，再添加同属入侵种的种子以评估入侵性。酸模属同属植物可相互……