Greenhouse plant-soil feedback experiment at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve

We conducted a reciprocal greenhouse experiment to examine how the growth
of prairie grass species depended on the soil communities conditioned by
conspecific or heterospecific plant species in the field. The source soil
came from monocultures in a long-term competition experiment (LTCE, Cedar
Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, MN, USA). Within the LTCE, six species of
perennial prairie grasses were grown in monocultures or in eight pairwise
competition plots for 12 years under conditions of low and high soil
nitrogen availability. In six cases, one species clearly excluded the
other; in two cases, the pair appeared to coexist. In year 12, we gathered
soil from all 12 soil types (monocultures of six species by two nitrogen
levels) and grew seedlings of all six species in each soil type for seven
weeks.