There is growing interest in understanding the role that plant–soil feedbacks (PSFs) may play in invasion resistance. However, recent studies have shown that there is great uncertainty in explaining community patterns by PSF studies regarding invasions. This uncertainty may be partly because soils used for PSF studies are usually collected from open areas rather than natural communities, thus ignoring the effects of community contexts that may specifically influence the soil feedbacks of community residents to invaders. We performed a two-phase pot experiment to study the soil feedback initiated by ten co-occurring native and exotic species to a forest invader, Phytolacca americana, and the experiments were performed in forest soil and open area soil. The context-dependent mechanisms were further explored by studying different components of PSF. The results showed that natives and exotics had positive and negative effects on P. americana in the open area soil, respectively, but both had negative effects in the forest soil. Nutrient limitation was more important for the PSF in open area soil, whereas biotic factors were likely the primary mechanisms explaining the PSF in forest soil. Additionally, the litter-mediated allelopathy of dominant Quercus acutissima caused the strongest inhibition of the invader. These results suggest that native species can effectively resist invasion by producing negative PSF depending on the community context. Evidence that exotic species promote invasion through positive PSFs was not obtained. This study provided preliminary insights into the possibility of bridging PSF studies and community patterns.

人们越来越有兴趣了解植物 - 土壤反馈 (PSF) 在入侵抗性中可能发挥的作用。然而，最近的研究表明，通过关于入侵的 PSF 研究来解释群落模式存在很大的不确定性。这种不确定性可能部分是因为用于 PSF 研究的土壤通常是从开放区域而不是自然社区收集的，因此忽略了社区环境的影响，这些环境可能特别影响社区居民对入侵者的土壤反馈。我们进行了一个两阶段盆栽实验来研究由 10 种共同出现的本地和外来物种对森林入侵者Phytolacca americana发起的土壤反馈, 试验在森林土壤和空地土壤中进行。通过研究 PSF 的不同组成部分，进一步探索了上下文相关的机制。结果表明，本地和外来物种分别对开阔地土壤中的美洲松有正面和负面影响，但在森林土壤中均具有负面影响。养分限制对于开阔地土壤中的 PSF 更为重要，而生物因素可能是解释森林土壤中 PSF 的主要机制。此外，优势栎属植物的凋落物介导的化感作用对入侵者造成了最强的抑制。这些结果表明，本地物种可以通过根据群落环境产生负 PSF 来有效抵抗入侵。没有获得外来物种通过阳性 PSF 促进入侵的证据。这项研究为连接 PSF 研究和社区模式的可能性提供了初步见解。