Ecological Archives C006-030-A1

Jonathan T. Bauer, Keenan M. L. Mack, and James D. Bever. 2015. Plant–soil feedbacks as drivers of succession: evidence from remnant and restored tallgrass prairies. Ecosphere 6:158. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/es14-00480.1

Appendix A. Plant–soil feedbacks as drivers of succession: evidence from remnant and restored tallgrass prairies, supplementary tables and figures.

Table A1. Supporting information on the successional stage of the plant species in our study. Values include coefficients of conservatism (CC) assigned in Swink and Wilhelm (1994) and the succession stages of our study species as indicated in Schramm (1990) and Betz (1996) * Elymus canadensis was not included in Schramm’s study.

CC values indicate a species’ dependence on high quality natural areas. Since species with low CCs are tolerant of anthropogenic disturbance, these values are typically well correlated with a species successional stage (Spyreas et al. 2012; Bauer and Bever, personal observations). We used these values as the basis for assigning a successional stage to our species. However, some species may be dependent on protected natural areas, but require natural disturbances to persist. In our case, Elymus canadensis, Panicum virgatum and Ratibida pinnata all occur predominantly in protected natural areas, but are early successional species within these areas (Schramm 1990, Betz et al. 1996). In prairie restorations these species are common in the early years of prairie restoration establishment, but are quickly reduced in abundance by later successional species (Rothrock and Squiers 2003, Camill et al. 2004). Consequently, successional stage values for these species were reduced as compared to their CC values.

Table A2. ANOVA results for tests of the effects of site, site type (remnant or restored prairie), “soil” (plant species used to train the soil), “plant” (plant species being tested) and their interactions on the log-transformed biomass of our plants. Follow-up contrasts for plant*soil, test if the strength of plant–soil feedback (calculated following Bever et al. 1997 and Mangan et al. 2012) is significantly different from zero. Follow-up contrasts for sitetype*plant*soil and site*plant*soil test whether these feedbacks differ between site types and sites respectively.

Fig. A1. Relationship between feedback and plant species abundance at remnant and restored tallgrass prairie sites. Remnant sites include (A) Cressmoor (r² = 0.27, p = 0.51), (B) Oak Ridge (r² = 0.20, p = 0.63) and (C) Hoosier Prairie (r² = -0.29, p = 0.49).  Restored sites include (D) Greiner (r² = -0.44, p = 0.28), (E) Conrad (r² = -0.10, p = 0.81) and Kankakee Sands (r² = -0.27, p = 0.52).

Fig. A2. Relationship between feedback and successional stage at remnant and restored tallgrass prairie study sites. Remnant sites include (A) Cressmoor (r² = 0.64, p = 0.087), (B) Oak Ridge (r² = 0.75, p = 0.032) and (C) Hoosier Prairie (r² = 0.10, p = 0.81).  Restored sites include (D) Greiner (r² = 0.80, p = 0.017), (E) Conrad (r² = 0.24, p = 0.57) and Kankakee Sands (r² = 0.49, p = 0.22).

Fig. A3. Relationship between mean strength of feedback (Is) experienced by species at a site and the average mycorrhizal abundance at a site, as measured by mycorrhizal inoculum potential (MIP) tests on conditioned soil (r² = 0.89, p = 0.02).

Literature Cited

Betz, R. F., R. J. Lootens, and M. K. Becker. 1996. Two decades of prairie restoration at Fermilab Batvia, Illinois. In: Proceedings of the North American Prairie Conference St. Charles, Illinois, USA.

Camill, P., M. J. McKone, S. T. Sturges, W. J. Severud, E. Ellis, J. Limmer, C. B. Martin, R. T. Navratil, A. J. Purdie, B. S. Sandel, S. Talukder, and A. Trout. 2004. Community- and ecosystem-level changes in a species-rich tallgrass prairie restoration. Ecological Applications 14:1680–1694.

Rothrock, P. E., and E. R. Squiers. 2003. Early succession in a tallgrass prairie restoration and the effects of nitrogen, phosphorus, and micronutrient enrichments. Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science 112:160–168.

Schramm, P. 1990. Prairie Restoration: A twenty-five year perspective on establishment and management. In: Proceedings of the twelfth North American Prairie conference, University of Northern Iowa.

Spyreas, G., S. J. Meiners, J. W. Matthews, and B. Molano‐Flores. 2012. Successional trends in floristic quality. Journal of Applied Ecology 49:339–348.

Swink, F., and G. Wilhelm. 1994. Plants of the Chicago Region. Indiana Academy of Science, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.

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