Mycorrhizal fungi mediate the direction and strength of plant-soil feedbacks differently between arbuscular mycorrhizal and ectomycorrhizal communities

First author: Kohmei Kadowaki; Affiliations: Kyoto University (京都大学): Shiga, Japan

Corresponding author: Kohmei Kadowaki

Plants influence their soil environment, which affects the next generation of seedlings that can be established. While research has shown that such plant–soil feedbacks occur in the presence of mycorrhizal fungi, it remains unclear when and how mycorrhizal fungi mediate the direction and strength of feedbacks in tree communities. Here we show that arbuscular mycorrhizal (丛枝菌根) and ectomycorrhizal fungal guilds (外生菌根真菌) mediate plant-soil feedbacks differently to influence large-scale patterns such as tree species coexistence and succession (演替). When seedlings are grown under the same mycorrhizal type forest, arbuscular mycorrhizal plant species exhibit negative or neutral feedbacks and ectomycorrhizal plant species do neutral or positive feedbacks. In contrast, positive and neutral feedbacks dominate when seedlings are grown in associations within the same versus different mycorrhizal types. Thus, ectomycorrhizal communities show more positive feedbacks than arbuscular mycorrhizal communities, potentially explaining why most temperate forests are ectomycorrhizal.

植物会影响周边的土壤环境，进而会影响下一代幼苗的生长。有研究显示这种植物-土壤的反馈调节在菌根真菌存在的条件中发生，然而菌根真菌何时以及如何介导林木中的反馈方向和强度还不清楚。本文中，作者的研究显示丛枝菌根与外生菌根真菌介导的植物-土壤反馈在影响林木物种共存与演替等大尺度模式上存在差异。当幼苗生长在同样类型的菌根条件下，丛枝菌根植物存在负向或中性反馈，而外生菌根植物存在中性或正向反馈。相反，当幼苗生长在不同的菌根条件下，则正向和中性反馈占优势。因此，外生菌根要比丛枝菌根显示出更加多的正向反馈，可能解释了为何大部分温带的森林具有外生菌根。

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-018-0201-9

Journal: Communications Biology

Published date: 20 November, 2018