Impact of lime, nitrogen and plant species on bacterial community structure in grassland microcosms.

Impact of lime, nitrogen and plant species on fungal community structure in grassland microcosms Running Title: Chemical and plant effects on fungal communities Keywords: grasslands, microcosms, fungi, ARISA, soil, rhizosphere effect

Symbiotic bacteria as a determinant of plant community structure and plant productivity in dune grassland.

Symbiotic interactions are thought to play a key role in ecosystems. Empirical evidence for the impact of symbiotic bacteria on plant communities is, however, extremely scarce because of experimental constraints. Here, in three complementary experiments, we show that nitrogen-fixing rhizobia bacteria act as a determinant of plant community structure and diversity. Grassland microcosms inoculate...

The mycorrhizal contribution to plant productivity, plant nutrition and soil structure in experimental grassland.

Previous studies have shown that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can influence plant diversity and ecosystem productivity. However, little is known about the effects of AMF and different AMF taxa on other important community properties such as nutrient acquisition, plant survival and soil structure. We established experimental grassland microcosms and tested the impact of AMF and of differen...

Impact of plant functional group, plant species, and sampling time on the composition of nirK-type denitrifier communities in soil.

We studied the influence of eight nonleguminous grassland plant species belonging to two functional groups (grasses and forbs) on the composition of soil denitrifier communities in experimental microcosms over two consecutive years. Denitrifier community composition was analyzed by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) of PCR-amplified nirK gene fragments coding for the cop...

Species Composition and Diversity Affect Grassland Susceptibility and Response to Invasion

In a microcosm experiment, I tested how species composition, species richness, and community age affect the susceptibility of grassland communities to invasion by a noxious weed (Centaurea solstitialis L.). I also examined how these factors influenced Centaurea’s impact on the rest of the plant community. When grown in monoculture, eight species found in California’s grasslands differed widely ...