Submission Type
Poster
Abstract
Microbial communities from drought environments have been observed to protect plants undergoing drought stress. A majority of studies have focused on single species; however, effects at a community level have yet to be thoroughly investigated. We asked how plant communities facing drought stress will differ in productivity when inoculated with microbe communities that have evolved under drought compared to well-watered conditions, as well as how biomass and trait responses vary across plant species. To investigate this, we used microbial communities from the rainfall manipulation LTER at Kellogg Biological Station to inoculate mesocosms simulating early successional grassland communities under drought or well-watered conditions in a greenhouse experiment.
Total productivity, measured as biomass, was lower in drought greenhouse treatments (P < 0.0001), but was not affected by microbe history (P = 0.49). However, microbe mediated plant responses to drought stress varied greatly by species. Within the community, two of eight species showed strong trait and biomass responses to the microbe treatments. Our findings suggest some species will perform better when inoculated with microbes that evolved in environments with similar stress conditions. While this was not true across all species, it may provide evidence that species responses to stress vary across a community, with some species responding more drastically to varying microbial history than others. This variation in stress response could potentially alter community composition over time.
Keywords: Plant Ecology, Community Ecology, Drought, Stress Response, Plant-Microbe Interactions, Functional Diversity
Included in
Microbe-Mediated Drought Responses in Plant Communties
Microbial communities from drought environments have been observed to protect plants undergoing drought stress. A majority of studies have focused on single species; however, effects at a community level have yet to be thoroughly investigated. We asked how plant communities facing drought stress will differ in productivity when inoculated with microbe communities that have evolved under drought compared to well-watered conditions, as well as how biomass and trait responses vary across plant species. To investigate this, we used microbial communities from the rainfall manipulation LTER at Kellogg Biological Station to inoculate mesocosms simulating early successional grassland communities under drought or well-watered conditions in a greenhouse experiment.
Total productivity, measured as biomass, was lower in drought greenhouse treatments (P < 0.0001), but was not affected by microbe history (P = 0.49). However, microbe mediated plant responses to drought stress varied greatly by species. Within the community, two of eight species showed strong trait and biomass responses to the microbe treatments. Our findings suggest some species will perform better when inoculated with microbes that evolved in environments with similar stress conditions. While this was not true across all species, it may provide evidence that species responses to stress vary across a community, with some species responding more drastically to varying microbial history than others. This variation in stress response could potentially alter community composition over time.
Keywords: Plant Ecology, Community Ecology, Drought, Stress Response, Plant-Microbe Interactions, Functional Diversity
Comments
Lana Bolin, bolinl@iu.edu, Indiana University- Bloomington
Madeleine Gellinger, madegell@iu.edu, Indiana University- Bloomington
Jen Lau, jenlau@iu.edu, Indiana University- Bloomington