Linking Restoration and Ecological Succession (Springer ... - Inecol

48 David A. Wardle and Duane A. Peltzer
Figure 3.1 Aboveground communities as affected by both direct and indirect consequence
of soil food web organisms. (Right): Feeding activities in the detritus food web
(slender solid arrows) stimulate nutrient turnover, plant nutrient acquisition (a), and plant
performance, and thereby indirectly influence aboveground herbivores (broken arrow)
(b1). (Left): Soil biota exert direct effects on plants by feeding upon roots and forming
antagonistic or mutualistic relationships with their host plants. Such direct interactions
with plants influence not just the performance of the host plants themselves but also
that of the herbivores (b2) and potentially their predators. Further, the soil food web
can control the successional development of plant communities both directly (c2) and
indirectly (c1), and these plant community changes can in turn influence soil biota. Reproduced
from Wardle et al. (2004a) with permission from the American Association
of the Advancement of Science. Drawing by Heikki Setälä.
foredune communities (van der Putten et al. 1993), and root herbivores affect
the relative abundance of different plant functional groups (Brown and
Gange 1990). Further, the structure of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities
serves as a driver of plant community structure (Van der Heijden et al.
1998). In a mesocosm study, De Deyn et al. (2003) showed that soil invertebrate
fauna suppress early successional grassland plant species and thus promote the
rate of secondary successional change in vegetation. Less is understood about
how the community structure of decomposer microbes and fauna affects either
primary or secondary vegetation succession. However, given that decomposer
community structure influences nutrient mineralization and therefore plant nutrient
acquisition and growth (Laakso and Setälä 1999, Liiri et al. 2002), it is
probable that the plant community composition is also responsive, with early
successional plants (that are most dependent on mineral nutrients) benefiting
most from those soil organisms that maximize soil mineralization.
Succession is characterized by shifts not only at the community level but also
at the ecosystem level (Odum 1969). Aboveground–belowground feedbacks