The role of resource dynamics on below-ground plant interactions. A dialogue between simple mathematical models and data.

Plant roots determine carbon uptake, survivorship, and agricultural yield and represent a large proportion of the world’s vegetation carbon pool. The study of below-ground plant growth, unlike aboveground shoot competition, is hampered by our inability to observe roots. We have few observations of intact root systems in soil and lack a comprehensive theory for root system responses to their environment.

In this presentation, I will first review previous theoretical efforts to explain plant below-ground competition and discuss how they lead to seemingly contradictory predictions. Then, I will introduce our recent theoretical and experimental work and show how it resolves existing controversy and provides a unifying framework to study below-ground plant interactions, both competitive and facilitative. I will conclude by discussing future research lines that depart from our results and how they can be addressed with extensions of our framework