Habitat-specific AMF symbioses enhance drought tolerance of a native Kenyan grass

Petipas, Renee H.; González, Jonathan; Palmer, Todd M.; Brody, Alison K.

doi:10.1016/j.actao.2016.12.005

Cited by 22 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 45 publications

(43 reference statements)

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“…Furthermore, because we used 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing optimized for bacteria, we did not sequence microbial taxa from other phyla; fungi and diatoms also associate with duckweeds in the field (Rejmankova et al., ; Goldsborough, ) and also may have proliferated in culture. Nonetheless, our design is an improvement over many plant–microbe studies that pair taxa that may not actually associate in nature, which can drastically alter conclusions (Petipas et al., ). For example, meta‐analyses of legume–rhizobium and plant–mycorrhiza experiments (e.g., Friesen, ; Rúa et al., ) often report a preponderance of studies involving partners not known to interact in the wild.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience to multiple stressors in an aquatic plant and its microbiome

O'Brien

Luo

et al. 2019

American J of Botany

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Premise Outcomes of species interactions, especially mutualisms, are notoriously dependent on environmental context, and environments are changing rapidly. Studies have investigated how mutualisms respond to or ameliorate anthropogenic environmental changes, but most have focused on nutrient pollution or climate change and tested stressors one at a time. Relatively little is known about how mutualisms may be altered by or buffer the effects of multiple chemical contaminants, which differ fundamentally from nutrient or climate stressors and are especially widespread in aquatic habitats. Methods We investigated the impacts of two contaminants on interactions between the duckweed Lemna minor and its microbiome. Sodium chloride (salt) and benzotriazole (a corrosion inhibitor) often co‐occur in runoff to water bodies where duckweeds reside. We tested three L. minor genotypes with and without the culturable portion of their microbiome across field‐realistic gradients of salt (3 levels) and benzotriazole (4 levels) in a fully factorial experiment (24 treatments, tested on each genotype) and measured plant and microbial growth. Results Stressors had conditional effects. Salt decreased both plant and microbial growth and decreased plant survival more as benzotriazole concentrations increased. In contrast, benzotriazole did not affect microbial abundance and even benefited plants when salt and microbes were absent, perhaps due to biotransformation into growth‐promoting compounds. Microbes did not ameliorate duckweed stressors; microbial inoculation increased plant growth, but not at high salt concentrations. Conclusions Our results suggest that multiple stressors matter when predicting responses of mutualisms to global change and that beneficial microbes may not always buffer hosts against stress.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience to multiple stressors in an aquatic plant and its microbiome

O'Brien

Luo

et al. 2019

American J of Botany

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“…Future advances in microbial biogeography associated with the use of synthetic biology, new approaches for microbial culturing, and multiple bio-omics (e.g., metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics, and metabolomics) may help us to harness the soil microbiome to promote crop production and health in a changing world. We are still far from knowing what functions are being conducted by every single microbial species and their contribution to terrestrial functions, yet synthetic biology approaches and engineering of microorganisms have been postulated to boost ecosystem restoration, rhizospheredriven crop yield, and pest control (110,111), to fight global environmental change (112,113), and even to aid the terraformation of other moons and planets to make them more similar to Earth (114,115).…”

Section: Further Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil Microbial Biogeography in a Changing World: Recent Advances and Future Perspectives

et al. 2020

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Soil microbial communities are fundamental to maintaining key soil processes associated with litter decomposition, nutrient cycling, and plant productivity and are thus integral to human well-being. Recent technological advances have exponentially increased our knowledge concerning the global ecological distributions of microbial communities across space and time and have provided evidence for their contribution to ecosystem functions. However, major knowledge gaps in soil biogeography remain to be addressed over the coming years as technology and research questions continue to evolve. In this minireview, we state recent advances and future directions in the study of soil microbial biogeography and discuss the need for a clearer concept of microbial species, projections of soil microbial distributions toward future global change scenarios, and the importance of embracing culture and isolation approaches to determine microbial functional profiles. This knowledge will be critical to better predict ecosystem functions in a changing world.

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“…Species with deep roots and those that allocate more to roots and less in reproductive structures have been shown to fare better under conditions of repeated water stress (Nippert & Holdo, ; Swemmer et al, ). Maximum rooting depth is generally considered a good indicator of the ability of species to withstand protracted dry periods, but factors such as root morphology, root biomass allocation with depth, functional plasticity in water uptake in relation to availability, variation in water transport capabilities and symbiotic associations with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are also important (Nippert & Holdo, ; Petipas, González, Palmer, & Brody, ). Grass species also show a range of drought avoidance strategies including leaf folding and rolling, rapid leaf shedding and large amounts of cuticular wax that can help delay the onset of physiological droughts (Bolger, Rivelli, & Garden, ).…”

Section: Direct Effects Of Droughts On Savanna Grassesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Droughts and the ecological future of tropical savanna vegetation

Sankaran

2019

Journal of Ecology

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Climate change is expected to lead to more frequent, intense and longer droughts in the future, with major implications for ecosystem processes and human livelihoods. The impacts of such droughts are already evident, with vegetation dieback reported from a range of ecosystems, including savannas, in recent years. Most of our insights into the mechanisms governing vegetation drought responses have come from forests and temperate grasslands, while responses of savannas have received less attention. Because the two life forms that dominate savannas—C3 trees and C4 grasses—respond differently to the same environmental controls, savanna responses to droughts can differ from those of forests and grasslands. Drought‐driven mortality of savanna vegetation is not readily predicted by just plant drought‐tolerance traits alone, but is the net outcome of multiple factors, including drought‐avoidance strategies, landscape and neighborhood context, and impacts of past and current stressors including fire, herbivory and inter‐life form competition. Many savannas currently appear to have the capacity to recover from moderate to severe short‐term droughts, although recovery times can be substantial. Factors facilitating recovery include the resprouting ability of vegetation, enhanced flowering and seeding and post‐drought amelioration of herbivory and fire. Future increases in drought severity, length and frequency can interrupt recovery trajectories and lead to compositional shifts, and thus pose substantial threats, particularly to arid and semi‐arid savannas. Synthesis. Our understanding of, and ability to predict, savanna drought responses is currently limited by availability of relevant data, and there is an urgent need for campaigns quantifying drought‐survival traits across diverse savannas. Importantly, these campaigns must move beyond reliance on a limited set of plant functional traits to identifying suites of physiological, morphological, anatomical and structural traits or “syndromes” that encapsulate both avoidance and tolerance strategies. There is also a critical need for a global network of long‐term savanna monitoring sites as these can provide key insights into factors influencing both resistance and resilience of different savannas to droughts. Such efforts, coupled with site‐specific rainfall manipulation experiments that characterize plant trait–drought response relationships, and modelling efforts, will enable a more comprehensive understanding of savanna drought responses.

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Habitat-specific AMF symbioses enhance drought tolerance of a native Kenyan grass

Abstract: 2017-08-30T02:06:40

Cited by 22 publications

References 45 publications

Resilience to multiple stressors in an aquatic plant and its microbiome

Resilience to multiple stressors in an aquatic plant and its microbiome

Soil Microbial Biogeography in a Changing World: Recent Advances and Future Perspectives

Droughts and the ecological future of tropical savanna vegetation

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