Soil health is fundamental in supporting plant diversity and productivity. In turn, a species-rich plant community enhances soil functions and is crucial in sustainable ecosystem management. However, soil degradation increases globally, raising the need for soil restoration. This study aims to test whether improving soil properties through multiple soil amendments promotes a species-rich plant community. We find that the diversity of amendments drives the changes in plant community composition, enhancing species richness, increasing herb and legume biomass, while reducing grass biomass. However, modifications in soil properties, such as water stable aggregates, water holding capacity and soil pH, are influenced by the number of amendments. Aligned with our findings, we observe that greater dissimilarity between restoration amendments results in more synergistic interactions for total above- and below-ground biomass. Our work emphasizes the mechanistic interactions of multiple soil amendments, providing actionable approach to enhance soil multifunctionality and support more targeted restoration strategies.
Li et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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