DOI: 10.5061/dryad.v8s83
title: Data from: The missing link in grassland restoration: arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi inoculation increases plant diversity and accelerates succession

description: Because soil microbial communities are often altered by anthropogenic
 disturbance, successful plant community restoration may require the
 restoration of beneficial soil microbes, such as arbuscular mycorrhizal
 (AM) fungi. Recent evidence suggests that later successional grassland
 species are more strongly affected by AM fungi relative to early
 successional plants and that late successional plants consistently benefit
 from some AM fungi but not other AM fungal species. Many of these late
 successional species are also often missing in restorations despite being
 heavily seeded. To assess the effects of AM fungal composition within
 grassland restorations, we inoculated plots with six different AM fungal
 community treatments including one of four different AM fungal species
 isolated from a prairie, a mixture of all four fungal species, and a
 non-inoculated control. AM fungi were introduced by planting 16 different
 inoculated nurse plants into replicated plots. We also seeded the
 restoration with a diverse, 54 species prairie seed mixture. We found that
 AM fungal inoculation drove plant community composition; plots inoculated
 with certain AM fungal treatments were dominated by desirable prairie
 plants, whereas plots inoculated with other AM fungal species and the
 non-inoculated control were dominated by non-desirable plants including
 weeds and exotic species. Specifically, we found that many early
 successional species established well regardless of AM fungal inoculation,
 whereas the establishment and growth of many late successional species was
 strongly dependent on the presence of specific AM fungal species. Many
 conservative late successional species did not occur without inoculation.
 Overall, total plant community richness, diversity, and Floristic Quality
 Index were all significantly improved with AM fungal inoculation, whereas
 we observed that non-desirable plant abundance was significantly greater
 in the non-inoculated plots. Synthesis and applications. Our results
 suggest that the lack of late successional establishment reported in many
 previous restorations may be due to ineffective arbuscular mycorrhizal
 fungal communities at these sites. We conclude that the reintroduction of
 arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi from reference prairie environments could
 improve restoration outcomes by promoting plant diversity and richness,
 especially for desirable later successional plant species, while
 simultaneously inhibiting less desirable weedy plants.
description: nurse plant
 growthlf/ht 1 are initial
 measurements lf/ h2 is at the time of planting lf/ht3 are at the end of
 year 2014 and lf/ht4 are at the end of the year 2015 (Second
 year.)all
 2014 measures until june2015.csvdiversityoutput
 numbersls means outputs for
 different diversity measurements of the ABG of all plants within a
 plotgetting divserity
 lsmeansr code to acquire LS
 means for diversitydivserity
 lsmeans.Rsas code for nurse
 plantshilltop spring 2015 mixed
 comparing single fungi and
 glimmiz.docxmegasheetforSAScorrectheadsmarch1516this has the plot average richness among different categories, as well as the summed abundance among different categoriescalculatingnativediversityr code used to calculate diversityweightsforDIVtrimmedwithone headerrowweights of plants in each plot (proportional abundance within a plot) where b-t are desirable early succession plants, s-ax are desirabls late successional plants, ay-bn are early succesiosnal native weeds, and bo-ce are non-native plants. Any label with a NU means it was a nurse plant species.richness2015number of plants in each catgory. these numbers were from the data collected on plant abundancerichness2015weightstoGETLSMEANSr code analyzing plant species richnessccsforSASxlplot average mean c, fqi and weighted mean c and fqiall files from KOZIOL Journal of Ap Eco AMF composition in grassland successiona zipped file of all files used in this study. It may contain files that were not used in the reported manuscript, or files that may have errors. Many files are data, many are code used to analyze or graph data.