The plants eye view: disentangling plant-plant, plant-herbivore, and plant-soil interactions

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My research program investigates the causal linkages between plant and soil community diversity. My most recent work focuses on how plant-plant interactions, particularly the negative interactions where an invasive species replaces a native species, structure plant and soil communities. In this granting cycle, I will expand my program scope to examine herbivory impacts on plant-soil interactions. Herbivore-plant-soil linkages have historically been notoriously difficult to disentangle because the strength and direction of plant-soil feedbacks are modified by multi-way interactions among the plant species and abiotic conditions. While we know that these mechanisms can separately be important forces structuring plant and soil community diversity and function, the relative importance of these mechanisms have rarely been investigated in a single natural community. My specific objectives for this granting cycle are to: 1.measure the long-term impacts of cattle grazing on fescue grassland plant and soil community structure, 2.evaluate the relative importance of grazing induced changes in root biomass allocation and root exudate profiles, 3.examine how the known long-term impacts of plant invasion arise from short-term herbivore-plant-soil processes operating at the moment of invasion. My research program is important because, while large mammal herbivory is known to structure plant-soil relationships, few studies have by attempted to disentangle the roles of direct plant-plant interactions and abiotic conditions from herbivory impacts. My research program will be among the first to investigate how herbivory interacts with plant-plant and environmental drivers to structure plant-soil interactions. Moving from the general to specific plant-soil processes, my program will be among the first to directly observe the fine-scale belowground dynamics at the moment of a plant invasion. The focal species for this work, Smooth Brome, is one of the most problematic invasive species in prairie grasslands. The broader ecosystem processes and consequences driving Brome invasion are well understood, yet little is known about the interactions between individual Brome plants and the established native plants that Brome displaces. My work will thus be among the first to study a plant invasion from the plants eye view, examining how aboveground and belowground processes interact through the invasion process in real time.