Aboveground-belowground linkages are recognized as divers of community dynamics and ecosystem processes, but the impacts of plant-neighbor interactions on these linkages are virtually unknown. Plant-neighbor interactions are a type of interspecific indirect genetic effect (IIGE) if the focal plant's phenotype is altered by the expression of genes in a neighboring heterospecific plant, and IIGEs...

We investigated soil streptomycete communities associated with four host plant species (two warm season C4 grasses: Andropogon gerardii, Schizachyrium scoparium and two legumes: Lespedeza capitata, Lupinus perennis), grown in plant communities varying in species richness. We used actinobacteria-selective PCR coupled with pyrosequencing to characterize streptomycete community composition and str...

Legacy data provide valuable baselines for assessing ecological changes. Excellent baseline data for Wisconsin's plant communities exist because of the surveys conducted by J.T. Curtis and colleagues (the Wisconsin Plant Ecology Laboratory or PEL, GIVD ID NA-US-008) in the 1940s and 1950s. They surveyed >2,000 sites to test how plant community composition varies along environmental gradients. T...

Legacy data provide valuable baselines for assessing ecological changes. Excellent baseline data for Wisconsin's plant communities exist because of the surveys conducted by J.T. Curtis and colleagues (the Wisconsin Plant Ecology Laboratory or PEL) in the 1940s and 1950s. They surveyed > 2,000 sites to test how plant community composition varies along environmental gradients. These sites include...

To examine the relationship between plant species composition and microbial community diversity and structure, we carried out a molecular analysis of microbial community structure and diversity in two field experiments. In the first experiment, we examined bacterial community structure in bulk and rhizosphere soils in fields exposed to different plant diversity treatments, via a 16S rRNA gene c...

Sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasiamus) occur in regions that are spatially diverse and temporally dynamic in western North America. During the past 130 years, significant changes in disturbance regimes have affected their habitat. Plant communities in existence today are unique from any other time period because of altered disturbance regimes, confounded by a continual change in climate. In so...

• We studied the relationships of plant and AMF (arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi) species richness and community composition to each other and gradients in soil texture, nutrient content, and light availability in three oak savannas in southern Wisconsin, USA. • Sixty-three samples were analysed for plant and AMF composition along sun–shade and sand–loam gradients. Samples consisted of plant commu...

If controls over primary productivity and plant community composition are mainly environmental, as opposed to biological, then global change may result in large-scale alterations in ecosystem structure and function. This view appears to be favored among investigations of plant biomass and community responses to experimental and observed warming. In far northern and arctic ecosystems, such studi...

Plant roots are known to harbor large and diverse communities of bacteria. It has been suggested that plant identity can structure these root-associated communities, but few studies have specifically assessed how the composition of root microbiota varies within and between plant species growing under natural conditions. We assessed the community composition of endophytic and epiphytic bacteria ...

In order to understand plant functioning, plant community composition, and terrestrial biogeochemistry, it is decisive to study standing root biomass, (fine) root dynamics, and interactions belowground. While most plant taxa can be identified by visual criteria aboveground, roots show less distinctive features. Furthermore, root systems of neighboring plants are rarely spatially segregated; thu...