Initial soil community drives heathland fungal community trajectory over multiple years through altered plant-soil interactions.

Dispersal limitation, biotic interactions, and environmental filters interact to drive plant and fungal community assembly, but their combined effects are rarely investigated. This study examines how different heathland plant and fungal colonization scenarios realized via three biotic treatments - addition of mature heathland-derived sod, addition of hay, and no additions - affect soil fungal community development over 6 yr along a manipulated pH gradient in a large-scale experiment starting from an agricultural, topsoil removed state. Our results show that both biotic and abiotic (pH) treatments had a persistent influence on the development of fungal communities, but that sod additions diminished the effect of abiotic treatments through time.

Litter quality and the law of the most limiting: Opportunities for restoring nutrient cycles in acidified forest soils.

The adverse effects of soil acidification are extensive and may result in hampered ecosystem functioning. Admixture of tree species with nutrient rich litter has been proposed to restore acidified forest soils and improve forest vitality, productivity and resilience. However, it is common belief that litter effects are insufficiently functional for restoration of poorly buffered sandy soils.