Chapter 30
Plant–Microbe Interaction
The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which
disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because
without proper care for it we can have no life.
(Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture)
30.1 Plant–Microbe Interaction Model
Soil microbial communities actively interact with terrestrial plant communities, and
they are documented to influence the community structure of the plant communities. We use here the soil feedback model introduced by Bever [1] to predict how
soil microbes may influence plant community structure by providing beneficial or
detrimental feedbacks. Figure 30.1, from Bever [1] shows the structure of the soil
feedback model. N A and N B represent the populations of two plant species, and S A
and S B represent the soil microbe communities that associate with A and B
respectively. The effect of plant A on its soil community S A is l, and the effect of
plant B on its soil community is ν. The effect from soil communities S A to plant A is
represented by α A , the effect to plant B is represented by α B . Similarly, the effect
from soil community B on plants A and B are represented by β A and β B respectively. The competition between plant species is assumed to follow the LotkaVolterra model (see Chap. 2 for basic illustrations). The competition effect of
species A on species B is C A , and the competition effect of species B on species
A is C B .
A save-disabled version of STELLA and the computer models of this book are available at
www.iseesystems.com/modelingdynamicbiologicalsystems.
B. Hannon and M. Ruth, Modeling Dynamic Biological Systems,
Modeling Dynamic Systems, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-05615-9_30,
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
249
Plant–Microbe Interaction
The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which
disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because
without proper care for it we can have no life.
(Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture)
30.1 Plant–Microbe Interaction Model
Soil microbial communities actively interact with terrestrial plant communities, and
they are documented to influence the community structure of the plant communities. We use here the soil feedback model introduced by Bever [1] to predict how
soil microbes may influence plant community structure by providing beneficial or
detrimental feedbacks. Figure 30.1, from Bever [1] shows the structure of the soil
feedback model. N A and N B represent the populations of two plant species, and S A
and S B represent the soil microbe communities that associate with A and B
respectively. The effect of plant A on its soil community S A is l, and the effect of
plant B on its soil community is ν. The effect from soil communities S A to plant A is
represented by α A , the effect to plant B is represented by α B . Similarly, the effect
from soil community B on plants A and B are represented by β A and β B respectively. The competition between plant species is assumed to follow the LotkaVolterra model (see Chap. 2 for basic illustrations). The competition effect of
species A on species B is C A , and the competition effect of species B on species
A is C B .
A save-disabled version of STELLA and the computer models of this book are available at
www.iseesystems.com/modelingdynamicbiologicalsystems.
B. Hannon and M. Ruth, Modeling Dynamic Biological Systems,
Modeling Dynamic Systems, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-05615-9_30,
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
249