Figures
Figure 1. Conditioning plant communities with different forb:grass ratios create different soil legacies. Experimental manipulation of the forb:grass ratio in the conditioning phase resulted in different levels of a) grass and b) forb cover in the conditioning plant communities. This, in turn, created soil legacy effects that negatively affected the cover by c) grasses andd) forbs, respectively. Dots represent actual data points, and a linear trendline was fitted (with a 95% confidence interval). Significant effects are presented in the figures. Asterisks represent significance levels (* p<0.05; ** p<0.01; *** p<0.001). Summary statistics are presented in Supplementary Table 2.
Figure 2. Conditioning plant communities accumulate functionally different fungal communities. Different fungal guilds were affected by different experimental treatments. The forb:grass ratio in the conditioning plant communities altered the accumulation of a)fungal pathogens, which were predominantly b) grass-associated fungal pathogens, and which were rich in c) the grass-associated fungal pathogen Slopeiomyces cylindrosporus . Conditioning time affected the levels of d) forb-associated fungal pathogens, and e) saprotrophic fungi. Dots represent actual data points, and a linear trendline was fitted (with a 95% confidence interval). Significant effects are presented in the figures. Asterisks represent significance levels (* p<0.05; ** p<0.01; *** p<0.001). Summary statistics are presented in Supplementary Table 4.
Figure 3. Soil legacy effects of conditioning plant communities on responding plant communities are mediated by soil fungi. A path analysis shows the relationships between conditioning plant communities and responding plant communities in the plant-soil feedback field experiment, via soil fungal and bacterial communities and soil abiotic parameters. All subplots are included in the analysis. Arrows represent significant correlations (Mantel r and p-values) between Bray-Curtis dissimilarity matrices of plant and soil microbial communities and Euclidean distances for soil abiotic parameters. Direct relationships are represented by solid black arrows and the indirect (soil-mediated) relationship between conditioning and responding plant communities is represented by a dashed black arrow.