Do plant-soil feedbacks increase the resilience of invaded California grasslands?
Grman, Emily*,1, Suding, Katharine2, Hayes, Erin2, 1 Department of Plant Biology, East Lansing, MI, USA2 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Irvine, CA, USA ABSTRACT- The resilience of Southern California coastal annual grasslands to restoration has prompted the hypothesis that native- and exotic-dominated communities represent alternative stable states. According to theory, strong positive and stabilizing feedbacks are required to maintain these alternative states. We conducted a pot experiment to examine whether soil feedbacks and priority effects may maintain California grasslands in an exotic annual-dominated state. We used two different plant mixtures to culture the soil community: natives (Nassella, Eschscholzia, Lasthenia), and exotics (Bromus, Brassica, Erodium). We also established pots without a culturing plant community. After 5 weeks, we removed the culturing plants in half of the pots. We then added “invaders,” either the native or exotic 3-species mixture, int
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