DOI: 10.5061/dryad.334765v
title: Data from: Soil microbes alter plant fitness under competition and drought

description: Plants exist across varying biotic and abiotic environments, including
 variation in the composition of soil microbial communities. The ecological
 effects of soil microbes on plant communities are well known, whereas less
 is known about their importance for plant evolutionary processes. In
 particular, the net effects of soil microbes on plant fitness may vary
 across environmental contexts and among plant genotypes, setting the stage
 for microbially mediated plant evolution. Here we assess the effects of
 soil microbes on plant fitness and natural selection on flowering time in
 different environments. We performed two experiments in which we grew
 Arabidopsis thaliana genotypes replicated in either live or sterilized
 soil microbial treatments, and across varying levels of either competition
 (isolation, intraspecific competition, or interspecific competition) or
 watering (well-watered or drought). We found large effects of competition
 and watering on plant fitness as well as the expression and natural
 selection of flowering time. Soil microbes increased average plant fitness
 under interspecific competition and drought, and shaped the response of
 individual plant genotypes to drought. Finally, plant tolerance to either
 competition or drought was uncorrelated between soil microbial treatments
 suggesting that the plant traits favoured under environmental stress may
 depend on the presence of soil microbes. In summary, our experiments
 demonstrate that soil microbes can have large effects on plant fitness,
 which depend on both the environment and individual plant genotype. Future
 work in natural systems is needed for a complete understanding of the
 evolutionary importance of interactions between plants and soil
 microorganisms.
description: R_scriptR script used for analyses and production of figures.AEG_code.Rfull_data_compData from experiment 1. ID = experimental object identifier; tray = experimental tray in which individual plant was held; fruit.focal.main = number of fruit on the main shoot of the focal plant; fruit.focal.second = number of fruit on the secondary shoots of the focal plant; fruit.comp.main = number of fruit on the main shoot of the competitor plant; fruit.focal.second = number of fruit on the secondary shoots of the competitor plant; Counter = fruit counter; flower.time.focal = date of flower of the focal plant; flower.time.comp = date of flower of the competitor.full_data_droughtFitness and flowering data for experiment 2. accession = plant genotype; water = watering treatment; microbe = microbe treatment; replicate = replicate number; tray = experimental tray in which individual pot was held; shelf = shelf on growth chamber rack; rack = growth chamber rack; fruit = number of fruit; flowering = Julian flower date; counter = experimental fruit counter; source = source of seed stock used in experiment.seed.count.compSeed counts from fruit from individual genotypes. genotype = plant genotype; mean = mean seed across 5 fruits from 5 individuals.seed.count.droughtAverage seed counts from 5 fruit from 5 individual genotypes. genotype = plant genotype; mean.wet = mean seed from 5 fruit from 5 individuals in the well watered treatment; mean.dry = mean seed from 5 fruit from 5 individuals in the drought treatment.