Indirect Interactions Driven by Soil Effects Enable Coexistence Among Competing Plant Species
Ezequiel Antorán, Jaime Madrigal‐González, Rubén Bernardo‐Madrid, Miguel Á. Fernández‐Martínez, Marcelino de la Cruz, Joaquín Calatayud · 2026
Read Indirect Interactions Driven by Soil Effects Enable Coexistence Among Competing Plant Species by Ezequiel Antorán, Jaime Madrigal‐González, Rubén Bernardo‐Madrid, Miguel Á. Fernández‐Martínez, Marcelino de la Cruz, Joaquín Calatayud (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13180312.txt.
Description
Ezequiel Antoran and co-authors showed soil effects let rival shrubs coexist in two thousand twenty-six. Plants reshape the soil beneath them over time. Those changes feed back on other plants' success. Direct plant-soil feedback was thought weak in diverse stands. Indirect effects through a third species may matter more. The team grew two competing shrubs in conditioned soil.
A mediating tree species had conditioned the soil first. Its microbes and chemicals shifted shrub performance. The weaker competitor grew better in that soil. The dominant competitor's germination dropped there. Simulations confirmed the shifts can stabilize coexistence. Simulated maps matched patterns in natural communities. Soil legacy thus quietly referees plant competition.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Ezequiel Antorán, Jaime Madrigal‐González, Rubén Bernardo‐Madrid, Miguel Á. Fernández‐Martínez, Marcelino de la Cruz, Joaquín Calatayud |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 51 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |