Globally, plant‐soil feedbacks are weak predictors of plant abundance
Abstract
Plant‐soil feedbacks (PSFs) have been shown to strongly affect plant performance under controlled conditions, and PSFs are thought to have far reaching consequences for plant population dynamics and the structuring of plant communities. However, thus far the relationship between PSF and plant species abundance in the field is not consistent. Here, we synthesize PSF experiments from tropical forests to semiarid grasslands, and test for a positive relationship between plant abundance in the field and PSFs estimated from controlled bioassays. We meta‐analyzed results from 22 PSF experiments and found an overall positive correlation (0.12 ≤ ≤ 0.32) between plant abundance in the field and PSFs across plant functional types (herbaceous and woody plants) but also variation by plant functional type. Thus, our analysis provides quantitative support that plant abundance has a general albeit weak positive relationship with PSFs across ecosystems. Overall, our results suggest that harmful soil biota tend to accumulate around and disproportionately impact species that are rare. However, data for the herbaceous species, which are most common in the literature, had no significant abundance‐PSFs relationship. Therefore, we conclude that further work is needed within and across biomes, succession stages and plant types, both under controlled and field conditions, while separating PSF effects from other drivers (e.g., herbivory, competition, disturbance) of plant abundance to tease apart the role of soil biota in causing patterns of plant rarity versus commonness.
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BibTeX
@article{reinhart2026globally,
title = {{Globally, plant‐soil feedbacks are weak predictors of plant abundance}},
author = {Kurt Reinhart and Jonathan Bauer and Sarah Mccarthy-Neumann and Andrew Macdougall and José Hierro and Mariana Chiuffo and Scott Mangan and Johannes Heinze and Joana Bergmann and Jasmin Joshi and Richard Duncan and Jeff Diez and Paul Kardol and Gemma Rutten and Markus Fischer and Wim van der Putten and Thiemo Martijn Bezemer and John Klironomos},
journal = {Ecology and Evolution},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1002/ece3.7167},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-04893156v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Globally, plant‐soil feedbacks are weak predictors of plant abundance
AU - Kurt Reinhart
AU - Jonathan Bauer
AU - Sarah Mccarthy-Neumann
AU - Andrew Macdougall
AU - José Hierro
AU - Mariana Chiuffo
AU - Scott Mangan
AU - Johannes Heinze
AU - Joana Bergmann
AU - Jasmin Joshi
AU - Richard Duncan
AU - Jeff Diez
AU - Paul Kardol
AU - Gemma Rutten
AU - Markus Fischer
AU - Wim van der Putten
AU - Thiemo Martijn Bezemer
AU - John Klironomos
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/07
JO - Ecology and Evolution
DO - 10.1002/ece3.7167
UR - https://hal.science/hal-04893156v1
AB - Plant‐soil feedbacks (PSFs) have been shown to strongly affect plant performance under controlled conditions, and PSFs are thought to have far reaching consequences for plant population dynamics and the structuring of plant communities. However, thus far the relationship between PSF and plant species abundance in the field is not consistent. Here, we synthesize PSF experiments from tropical forests to semiarid grasslands, and test for a positive relationship between plant abundance in the field and PSFs estimated from controlled bioassays. We meta‐analyzed results from 22 PSF experiments and found an overall positive correlation (0.12 ≤ ≤ 0.32) between plant abundance in the field and PSFs across plant functional types (herbaceous and woody plants) but also variation by plant functional type. Thus, our analysis provides quantitative support that plant abundance has a general albeit weak positive relationship with PSFs across ecosystems. Overall, our results suggest that harmful soil biota tend to accumulate around and disproportionately impact species that are rare. However, data for the herbaceous species, which are most common in the literature, had no significant abundance‐PSFs relationship. Therefore, we conclude that further work is needed within and across biomes, succession stages and plant types, both under controlled and field conditions, while separating PSF effects from other drivers (e.g., herbivory, competition, disturbance) of plant abundance to tease apart the role of soil biota in causing patterns of plant rarity versus commonness.
SN - 2045-7758
ER -