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.