Grasses procure key soil nutrients for clovers

Rhizobial nitrogen fixation in legumes provides spillover benefits to neighbouring plants such as pasture grasses. Generally, it is understood to be unidirectional between plant functional groups, providing a benefit from legumes to grasses. We question whether bidirectional complementarity also exists in terms of exploiting the wider soil nutrient pool. We test this hypothesis using soil cores with their component vegetation assemblages sampled from a hill country pasture in South Island, New Zealand. The soil was deficient in key essential elements: P, S, B, Mo and Ni. Facilitation from grasses to clovers was evident; legume-grass mixtures procured more nutrients from the soil than when either species was growing alone. When grasses and clover grow together in unfertilized grassland, more nitrogen is procured by the plant community, and other limiting plant nutrients in the soil are better exploited. Coexistence with grasses is favourable to clovers in terms of soil biogeochemistry. Nitrogen fixation by legumes into the soil has long been known to benefit other plants, but this study finds a bidirectional relationship by which grasses help provide key nutrients for legumes. Grasses and clovers exploit soil nutrients better together than separately.

Automated summary

This study finds a bidirectional relationship between grasses and legumes, where grasses help provide key nutrients for legumes, leading to better utilization of soil nutrients.