Speaker
Description
Land use intensification strongly affects grassland biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, yet its long-term effects on soil-mediated responses to environmental change remain poorly understood. We investigated whether soil communities originating from extensively and intensively managed grasslands generate contrasting responses to fertilisation and drought in experimental grassland communities.
We established 3- and 6-species plant communities using populations collected from extensively and intensively managed grasslands in the Yorkshire Dales (UK). Plants were grown with soil communities originating from either extensive or intensive management, exposed to contrasting fertilisation regimes and drought treatments. We assessed plant performance, functional traits and soil microbial activity to determine how long-term soil management history influences ecosystem responses to contemporary environmental drivers.
Preliminary analyses reveal persistent legacy effects of soil management. Soil communities from intensively managed grasslands promoted photosynthetic performance even in the absence of contemporary fertilisation, suggesting that long-term nutrient enrichment creates enduring fertilisation-like effects. Furthermore, intensive soil legacies altered root trait responses to fertilisation and drought, resulting in reduced specific root length and modified biomass allocation patterns compared with extensively managed soils. In contrast, microbial respiration remained higher under extensive soil management, indicating divergent belowground functioning between management histories.
Our findings suggest that long-term land use intensification generates persistent soil legacies that shape plant resource-acquisition strategies and modify ecosystem responses to future environmental change. These results highlight the importance of considering soil management history when predicting grassland resilience under ongoing global change.