Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi shape the adaptive strategy of plants by mediating nutrient acquisition in a shrub-dominated community in the Mu Us Desert

Zhang

et al. 2021

Oikos

Nutrient enrichment can reduce ecosystem stability, typically measured as temporal stability of a single function, e.g. plant productivity. Moreover, nutrient enrichment can alter plant–soil interactions (e.g. mycorrhizal symbiosis) that determine plant community composition and productivity. Thus, it is likely that nutrient enrichment and interactions between plants and their soil communities co‐determine the stability in plant community composition and productivity. Yet our understanding as to how nutrient enrichment affects multiple facets of ecosystem stability, such as functional and compositional stability, and the role of above–belowground interactions are still lacking. We tested how mycorrhizal suppression and phosphorus (P) addition influenced multiple facets of ecosystem stability in a three‐year field study in a temperate steppe. Here we focused on the functional and compositional stability of plant community; functional stability is the temporal community variance in primary productivity; compositional stability is represented by compositional resistance, turnover, species extinction and invasion. Community variance was partitioned into population variance defined as community productivity weighted average of the species temporal variance in performance, and species synchrony defined as the degree of temporal positive covariation among species. Compared to treatments with mycorrhizal suppression, the intact AM fungal communities reduced community variance in primary productivity by reducing species synchrony at high levels of P addition. Species synchrony and population variance were linearly associated with community variance with the intact AM fungal communities, while these relationships were decoupled or weakened by mycorrhizal suppression. The intact AM fungal communities promoted the compositional resistance of plant communities by reducing compositional turnover, but this effect was suppressed by P addition. P addition increased the number of species extinctions and thus promoted compositional turnover. Our study shows P addition and AM fungal communities can jointly and independently modify the various components of ecosystem stability in terms of plant community productivity and composition.

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 76%

Mycorrhizal suppression and phosphorus addition influence the stability of plant community composition and function in a temperate steppe

Zhang

et al. 2021

Oikos

“…Symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are involved in many plant processes, such as nutrient acquisition, photosynthesis, root formation and stress resistance (Humphreys et al 2010;Chiu et al 2018;Lanfranco et al 2018;Liu et al 2018;Rivero et al 2018;Gavito et al 2019;Qiao et al 2019). AMF from the phylum Mucoromycota, subphylum Glomeromycotina, establish the most common arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) with the roots of 72% of vascular plants (Bonfante 2018).…”

Section: •àmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2019; Qiao et al . 2019). AMF from the phylum Mucoromycota, subphylum Glomeromycotina, establish the most common arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) with the roots of 72% of vascular plants (Bonfante 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unravelling the role of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in mitigating the oxidative burst of plants under drought stress

2020

With continued climate changes, soil drought stress has become the main limiting factor for crop growth in arid and semi-arid regions. A typical characteristic of drought stress is the burst of reactive oxygen species (ROS), causing oxidative damage. Plant-associated microbes, such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), can regulate physiological and molecular responses to tolerate drought stress, and they have a strong ability to cope with drought-induced oxidative damage via enhanced antioxidant defence systems. AMF produce a limited oxidative burst in the arbuscule-containing root cortical cells. Similar to plants, AMF modulate a fungal network in enzymatic (e.g. GmarCuZnSOD and GintSOD1) and non-enzymatic (e.g. GintMT1, GinPDX1 and GintGRX1) antioxidant defence systems to scavenge ROS. Plants also respond to mycorrhization to enhance stress tolerance via metabolites and the induction of genes. The present review provides an overview of the network of plant À arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus dialogue in mitigating oxidative stress. Future studies should involve identifying genes and transcription factors from both AMF and host plants in response to drought stress, and utilize transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics to clarify a clear dialogue mechanism between plants and AMF in mitigating oxidative burst.

“…Benomyl is an effective fungicide to suppress AM fungi in natural grasslands (Hartnett & Wilson, 1999;Yang et al, 2014;Kula & Hartnett, 2015;Zhang et al, 2016a). Some field experiments have also reported that the effects of the use of benomyl on plant community diversity and productivity can be caused by AM fungal suppression, with only marginal impacts on other soil microbial groups (Yang et al, 2014(Yang et al, , 2018bQiao et al, 2019).…”

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inter‐annual precipitation variability alters the effects of soil resource enrichment and mycorrhizal suppression on plant communities in desert steppe

Tian

Feng

et al. 2021

J Vegetation Science

Questions:In desert steppes, plant community productivity and species composition are primarily co-limited by soil water and nitrogen availability. However, how the addition of resources and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) interactively influence plant community performance has not been investigated in detail.Location: Desert steppe, China. Methods:We performed a field study to examine the effects of levels of increased water, nitrogen and AMF suppression on plant communities in two years with contrasting inter-annual precipitation variability in desert steppe. Results:We found that inter-annual precipitation variability altered plant community composition and their productivity in response to water and nitrogen addition and mycorrhizal suppression. AM fungal suppression had few effects on above-ground plant productivity, whereas the primary effects of water and nitrogen addition were significant across both years. The addition of water and nitrogen altered plant community composition and productivity primarily by increasing the abundance and biomass of annual species only in the normal year (2019), but decreasing the abundance of perennial grasses regardless of the presence of AM fungi across two years with contrasting precipitation conditions. Moreover, the addition of water alone slightly increased the species richness and Shannon diversity compared with the control. Conclusions:Our findings highlight the importance of inter-annual precipitation variability rather than that of soil resource enrichment and interactions of plants and AM fungi in plant community composition within the desert steppe.