Native soil microbial amendments generate trade‐offs in plant productivity, diversity, and soil stability in coastal dune restorations

Crawford, Kerri M.; Busch, Michelle H.; Locke, Hannah; Luecke, Noah C.

doi:10.1111/rec.13073

i

Native soil microbial amendments generate trade‐offs in plant productivity, diversity, and soil stability in coastal dune restorations

2019
By Crawford, Kerri M. ; Busch, Michelle H. ; Locke, Hannah ; ...

Details

Journal Title:

Restoration Ecology
Personal Author:

Crawford, Kerri M. ; Busch, Michelle H. ; Locke, Hannah ; Luecke, Noah C.
NOAA Program & Office:

OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research)
Description:

Given the important role that soil microbes play in structuring plant communities and mediating ecosystem functions, there is growing interest in harnessing microbial communities to restore degraded ecosystems. Dune restorations, in particular, may benefit from native soil amendments because microbial diversity and abundance are very low in unvegetated areas. In an outdoor mesocosm experiment simulating Texas Gulf Coast dune restorations, we tested how native soil microbial amendments and restored diversity of foundational grasses influenced three key restoration responses: plant performance, plant diversity (including the colonization of native forbs), and soil stability. We found that native microbial amendments increased plant diversity and have the potential to increase soil stability, but this came at the cost of decreased plant biomass. Our results suggest that soil enemies in the native microbial amendments increased plant diversity by decreasing the performance of the dominant grass species and that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in the native microbial amendments increased the density of fungal hyphae in the soil, which can increase soil stability. Depending on the goals of the restoration, native soil microbial amendments may be a simple and inexpensive method to provide restoration benefits.
Keywords:

Ecology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior And Systematics Nature And Landscape Conservation Ecology, Evolution, Behavior And Systematics Nature And Landscape Conservation Ecology, Evolution, Behavior And Systematics Nature And Landscape Conservation
Source:

Restoration Ecology, 28(2), 328-336
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.13073
ISSN:

1061-2971 ; 1526-100X
Format:

PDF
Publisher:

Wiley
Document Type:

Journal Article
Funding:

Grant no. NA14OAR4170102
Rights Information:

Accepted Manuscript
Compliance:

Library
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha256:42f5be7d3899e15e8d62d30aed205fdf80aadb4ccb12789800b8c2bc6b6d84fc
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/56924/noaa_56924_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 760.94 KB ]

ON THIS PAGE

Details

The NOAA IR serves as an archival repository of NOAA-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other information authored or co-authored by NOAA or funded partners. As a repository, the NOAA IR retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.