Soil legacies play an important role for the creation of priority effects. However, we still poorly understand to what extent the metabolome found in the soil solution of a plant community is conditioned by its species composition and whether soil chemical legacies affect subsequent species during assembly. To test these hypotheses, we collected soil solutions from forb or grass communities and evaluated how the metabolome of these soil solutions affected the growth, biomass allocation and functional traits of a forb (Dianthus deltoides) and a grass species (Festuca rubra). Results showed that the metabolomes found in the soil solutions of forb and grass communities differed in composition and chemical diversity. While soil chemical legacies did not have any effect on F. rubra, root foraging by D. deltoides decreased when plants received the soil solution from a grass or a forb community. Structural equation modelling showed that reduced soil exploration by D. deltoides arose via either a root growth‐dependent pathway (forb metabolome) or a root trait‐dependent pathway (grass metabolome). Reduced root foraging was not connected to a decrease in total N uptake. Our findings reveal that soil chemical legacies can create belowground priority effects by affecting root foraging in later arriving plants.

中文翻译：

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土壤化学遗产在后来到达的植物中触发物种特异性和环境相关的根系反应

土壤遗产在创造优先效应方面发挥着重要作用。然而，我们仍然不清楚在植物群落的土壤溶液中发现的代谢组在多大程度上受其物种组成的影响，以及土壤化学遗产是否会在组装过程中影响后续物种。为了验证这些假设，我们从杂草或禾本科群落中收集了土壤溶液，并评估了这些土壤溶液的代谢组如何影响杂草 ( Dianthus deltoides ) 和禾本科植物 ( Festuca rubra )的生长、生物量分配和功能特性。结果表明，在杂草和草群落土壤溶液中发现的代谢组在组成和化学多样性方面存在差异。虽然土壤化学遗产对F没有任何影响. 红叶，由D觅食的根。当植物接受来自草或杂草群落的土壤溶液时，三角肌减少。结构方程模型表明D减少了土壤勘探。三角肌通过根生长依赖途径（forb 代谢组）或根性状依赖途径（草代谢组）产生。根系觅食减少与总氮吸收减少无关。我们的研究结果表明，土壤化学遗产可以通过影响后来到达的植物的根觅食来产生地下优先效应。