Soil-borne pathogens can shape forest communities by lowering seedling survivorship. Many soil pathogens can persist long-term as survival spores, but how long pathogens outlive tree hosts in gap soils and whether they continue to affect seedling survival is uncertain. We studied the presence of oomycetes and evaluated seedling performance in soils near live Prunus serotina trees, and 0.5 and 1.5-y-old stumps. We isolated five species of oomycetes from soils, two of which were pathogenic (Pythium intermedium and Pythium irregulare) to Prunus serotina. There was a non-significant ~10.5% increase in conspecific seedling survival in stumps versus live trees, and pathogens were present in soils of all stump ages. The continued presence of pathogens of Prunus serotina in gap soils demonstrates the potential for impacts on conspecific regeneration after tree death, though the slight improvement in survival suggests that these effects may weaken with time.

土壤传播的病原体可以通过降低幼苗存活率来塑造森林群落。许多土壤病原体可以作为存活孢子长期存在，但病原体在间隙土壤中比树木寄主存活多长时间以及它们是否继续影响幼苗存活尚不确定。我们研究了卵菌的存在，并评估了活的李子树附近土壤中的幼苗性能，以及 0.5 和 1.5 岁的树桩。我们从土壤中分离出五种卵菌，其中两种对Prunus serotina具有致病性（中间腐霉和不规则腐霉）. 与活树相比，树桩的同种幼苗存活率增加了约 10.5%，并且病原体存在于所有树桩年龄的土壤中。Prunus serotina病原体在间隙土壤中的持续存在表明可能对树木死亡后同种再生产生影响，尽管存活率略有提高表明这些影响可能会随着时间的推移而减弱。