Mycorrhizal fungi modulate plant communities in grasslands.

What is it about?

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi form mutualistic relationships with most of the land plants, improving plant nutrition, plant resistance against pathogens, and thereby plant performance. Through their impact on performance of plant individuals symbiotic relationships between plants and AM fungi are expected to also influence plant community composition and ecosystem processes. However, it remains unknown how tightly communities of plants and AM fungi are related in nature and what determines the strength of their relationship. We found that shifts in the composition of plants and AM fungi are related and that plant mycorrhizal traits can determine how tightly both communities are interlinked. We also found that plant and AM fungal communities are strongly related when the abundance of plant species obligatorily relying on mycorrhizal symbiosis is high. This is the case in many grasslands, and thus considering AM fungi can help making restoration and conservation efforts to protect grasslands and their high biodiversity more successful.

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Why is it important?

Our findings extend previous evidence that plant mycorrhizal status can mediate AM fungal effects on plant competition and plant diversity under controlled conditions (Lin et al. 2015, J Ecol), demonstrating that these effects scale up to the community level regulating the relationship between plant and AM fungal composition in nature.

Perspectives