Plant-soil feedbacks: missing links

Abstract

Plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) are caused by plants modifying their soil environment,
which has a knock-on effect on the next generation. While this general principle has
been known about for thousands of years, we are only now in a position to truly
understand how plants signal to microbes and soil fauna to recruit a unique
rhizosphere community- the ‘extended phenotype’. Interestingly, much of the time
the net PSF effect is negative, deterring offspring from growing too close. Research
into the mechanisms and drivers of PSFs has accelerated in recent years, but there
are still a multitude of gaps in the literature, as well as the problem of PSFs
masquerading under an alias. Here I discuss some of the most glaring gaps, with
reference to some of my attempts to address them.