Crop diversity enriches arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities in an intensive agricultural landscape

Abstract

• Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are keystone symbionts of agricultural soils but agricultural intensification has negatively impacted AMF communities. Increasing crop diversity could ameliorate some of these impacts by positively affecting arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. However, the underlying relationship between plant diversity and AMF community composition has not been fully resolved. • We examined how greater crop diversity affected AMF across farms in an intensive agricultural landscape, defined by high nutrient input, low crop diversity, and high tillage frequency. We assessed AMF communities across 31 field sites that were either monocultures or polycultures (growing >20 different crop types) in three ways: (1) richness, (2) diversity, and (3) composition. We also determined root colonization across these sites. • We found polycultures drive the available AMF community into richer and more diverse communities while soil properties structure AMF community composition. AMF root colonization did not vary by farm management (monocultures versus polycultures), but did vary by crop host. • We demonstrate that crop diversity enriches AMF communities, counteracting the negative effects of agricultural intensification on AMF, providing the potential to increase agroecosystem functioning and sustainability.

Agricultural land‐use favours Mucoromycotinian, but not Glomeromycotinian, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi across ten biomes

“…Conversion of land to industrialised farming has been invoked, globally, as one of the main causes of native ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss (Chaudhary et al, 2016;Tilman et al, 2017). The consequences of land transformation on ecosystem function and diversity of plants and animals have been extensively studied, but the effects on the biodiversity and functionality of microbial communities, including arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), are less well understood (Bowles et al, 2017;Wood et al, 2017;Guerra et al, 2020;Guzman et al, 2021). Glomeromycotinian AMF (G-AMF) are ubiquitous world-wide (Kivlin et al, 2011;Tedersoo et al, 2014) and, while many questions remain to be answered, they are considered important for ecosystem functioning due to their role in plant health, soil aggregation, and nutrient cycling (Powell & Rillig, 2018).…”

Hongos micorrízicos arbusculares (HMA) en bosques secos tropicales (BST) afectados por fuego y depósitos fluviovolcánicos en el departamento del Tolima, Colombia

“…Una alta diversidad vegetal como la encontrada en las áreas naturales permite tener más morfoespecies raras de HMA debido a que existe un mayor número de huéspedes (Hontoria, et al, 2019;Davison, et al, 2020;Guzman, et al, 2021). Las morfoespecies raras o poco frecuentes son producto de la respuesta coevolutiva entre los HMA y las plantas para un mejor beneficio simbiótico; estas desarrollan capacidades funcionales según los requerimientos del huésped de su preferencia (van der Heijden, et al, 2003;Oliveira, et al, 2006;Helgason, et al, 2007).…”

Reconnecting Grazing Livestock to Crop Landscapes: Reversing Specialization Trends to Restore Landscape Multifunctionality

“…Therefore, considering that biodiversity loss is a major driver of reduced multifunctionality across all terrestrial ecosystems (Cardinale et al, 2012;Fanin et al, 2018), biodiversity-based, resilience-oriented farming practices must be targeted if the aim is to restore landscape multifunctionality (Foley et al, 2005(Foley et al, , 2011Kremen and Merenlender, 2018). Alternatives for the re-diversification of agricultural systems with associated gains in ES delivery include the use of diversified crop rotations or polycultures (Kremen and Merenlender, 2018;Bowles et al, 2020;Guzman et al, 2021), cover crops (Pinto et al, 2017;Sekaran et al, 2021;Villarino et al, 2021) and the recoupling of crop and livestock production (Soussana and Lemaire, 2014;Sekaran et al, 2021).…”

“…These characteristics are critical for food security in the context of climate change. Also, polycultures improve the richness and diversity of soil arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities in areas previously managed under intensive monoculture farming, with applications for landscape multifunctionality restoration (Guzman et al, 2021). As part of the "associated biodiversity" (i.e., the component of agrobiodiversity that emerges from farming practices; Duprat et al, 2018), these organisms play an important role in nutrient acquisition, soil structure formation and drought tolerance.…”