The resistances to liquid water transport in the soil and plant were determined directly and simultaneously from measurements of soil, root, and leaf water potentials and the flux of water through the soil-plant system to the sites of evaporation in the leaf. For soybean (Merr.) transporting water at a steady rate, water potential differences between soil and root were smaller than between root...

Plant-soil feedbacks have been implicated in several successful plant invasions. However, simple identification of a feedback alone may not be enough to establish feedbacks as a mechanism behind plant invasion. I suggest that the relationship between soil community density and plant growth is an important unknown that strongly influences the impact of plant-soil feedbacks. I developed a mathema...

Effects of flurprimidol on plant water relations and leaf gas exchange were investigated in one-year-old white ash (Fraxinus americana L.) seedlings subjected to soil water deficits. Flurprimidol (20 mg kg(-1) of soil equivalent) was applied to the soil surface of pot-grown seedlings after shoot growth was completed. Two months after flurprimidol application, water was withheld from one-half of...

Recent studies have shown that introduced exotic plant species may be released from their native soilborne pathogens, but that they become exposed to increased soil pathogen activity in the new range when time since introduction increases. Other studies have shown that introduced exotic plant species become less dominant when time since introduction increases, and that plant abundance may be co...

Feedbacks of terrestrial ecosystems to atmospheric and climate change depend on soil ecosystem dynamics. Soil ecosystems can directly and indirectly respond to climate change. For example, warming directly alters microbial communities by increasing their activity. Climate change may also alter plant community composition, thus indirectly altering the soil communities that depend on their inputs...

The trait-based approach shows that plant functional diversity strongly affects ecosystem properties. However, few empirical studies show the relationship between soil fungal diversity and plant functional diversity in natural ecosystems. We investigated soil fungal diversity along a restoration gradient of sandy grassland (mobile dune, semifixed dune, fixed dune, and grassland) in Horqin Sand ...