59-Adult trees cause density-dependent mortality i

59-Adult trees cause density-dependent mortality in conspecific seedlings by regulating the frequency of pathogenic soil fungi.LETTERAdulttreescausedensity-dependentmortalityinconspecificseedlingsbyregulatingthefrequencyofpathogenicsoilfungiMinxiaLiang,1XubingLiu,1*GregoryS.Gilbert,2,3YiZheng,1ShanLuo,1FengminHuang1andShixiaoYu1*AbstractNegativedensity-dependentseedlingmortalityhasbeenwidelydetectedintropical,subtropicalandtemperateforests,withsoilpathogensasamajordriver.Hereweinvestigatedhowhostden-sityaffectsthecompositionofsoilpathogencommunitiesandconsequentlyinfluencesthestrengthofplant-soilfeedbacks.Infieldcensusesofsix1-hapermanentplots,wefoundthatsurvivalwasmuchlowerfornewlygerminatedseedlingsthatweresurroundedbymoreconspecificadults.Therelativeabundanceofpathogenicfungiinsoilincreasedwithincreasingconspecifictreedensityforfiveofninetreespecies;moresoilpathogensaccumulatedaroundrootswhereadulttreeden-sitywashigher,andthisgreaterpathogenfrequencywasassociatedwithlowerseedlingsur