Nurses experience reciprocal fitness benefits from their distantly related facilitated plants

Sortibrán, Lugui; Verdú, Miguel; Valiente‐Banuet, Alfonso

doi:10.1016/j.ppees.2014.07.001

Cited by 18 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Otherwise, high levels of unexplained variation could be falsely attributed to biological interactions. In our case, we selected an assortment of 11–13 soil abiotic parameters that show variability at the metre scale in the study sites according to our previous studies (Goberna, Navarro‐Cano, et al, ; Goberna et al, ; Navarro‐Cano et al, , ; Sortibrán, Verdú, & Valiente‐Banuet, ). Admittedly, however, other unmeasured abiotic factors, such as the partial pressure of oxygen or the content in certain micronutrients, might be relevant at the microscale level (reviewed in Fierer, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporating phylogenetic metrics to microbial co‐occurrence networks based on amplicon sequences to discern community assembly processes

Goberna

Montesinos‐Navarro

Valiente‐Banuet

et al. 2019

Molecular Ecology Resources

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Co‐occurrence network analysis based on amplicon sequences is increasingly used to study microbial communities. Patterns of co‐existence or mutual exclusion between pairs of taxa are often interpreted as reflecting positive or negative biological interactions. However, other assembly processes can underlie these patterns, including species failure to reach distant areas (dispersal limitation) and tolerate local environmental conditions (habitat filtering). We provide a tool to quantify the relative contribution of community assembly processes to microbial co‐occurrence patterns, which we applied to explore soil bacterial communities in two dry ecosystems. First, we sequenced a bacterial phylogenetic marker in soils collected across multiple plots. Second, we inferred co‐occurrence networks to identify pairs of significantly associated taxa, either co‐existing more (aggregated) or less often (segregated) than expected at random. Third, we assigned assembly processes to each pair: patterns explained based on spatial or environmental distance were ascribed to dispersal limitation (2%–4%) or habitat filtering (55%–77%), and the remaining to biological interactions. Finally, we calculated the phylogenetic distance between taxon pairs to test theoretical expectations on the linkages between phylogenetic patterns and assembly processes. Aggregated pairs were more closely related than segregated pairs. Furthermore, habitat‐filtered aggregated pairs were closer relatives than those assigned to positive interactions, consistent with phylogenetic niche conservatism and cooperativism among distantly related taxa. Negative interactions resulted in equivocal phylogenetic signatures, probably because different competitive processes leave opposing signals. We show that microbial co‐occurrence networks mainly reflect environmental tolerances and propose that incorporating measures of phylogenetic relatedness to networks might help elucidate ecologically meaningful patterns.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporating phylogenetic metrics to microbial co‐occurrence networks based on amplicon sequences to discern community assembly processes

Goberna

Montesinos‐Navarro

Valiente‐Banuet

et al. 2019

Molecular Ecology Resources

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“…At our study site, the total soil N content in bare ground (without any vegetation) is 0.14% ± 0.01% (Sortibrán et al. ), which is relatively low considering that soil N content across biomes ranges from 0.01% to 3% globally (Ordoñez et al. ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…Sortibrán et al. () showed that the nurse species M. luisana produced more flowers and fruits when it had facilitated plants growing underneath its canopy than when growing alone. Furthermore, nurse fitness increased with the phylogenetic diversity of the plant neighborhood (Sortibrán et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, nurse fitness increased with the phylogenetic diversity of the plant neighborhood (Sortibrán et al. ), a benefit that disappeared when the mycorrhizal fungal network in the shared rhizosphere was experimentally disrupted (L. Sortibrán, personal communication ). Most of the plant species in our system form symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (Camargo‐Ricalde et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Facilitative interactions take place when one species (i.e., nurse species) benefits another (i.e., facilitated species) without resulting in any damage to the former or even resulting in a mutual benefit for both species (Callaway , Sortibrán et al. ). Some facilitative interactions shift to competition during the ontogeny of the facilitated plant (Schöb et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nurse plants transfer more nitrogen to distantly related species

Montesinos‐Navarro

Verdú

Querejeta

et al. 2017

Ecology

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Plant facilitative interactions enhance co-occurrence between distant relatives, partly due to limited overlap in resource requirements. We propose a different mechanism for the coexistence of distant relatives based on positive interactions of nutrient sharing. Nutrients move between plants following source-sink gradients driven by plant traits that allow these gradients to establish. Specifically, nitrogen (N) concentration gradients can arise from variation in leaf N content across plants species. As many ecologically relevant traits, we hypothesize that leaf N content is phylogenetically conserved and can result in N gradients promoting N transfer among distant relatives. In a Mexican desert community governed by facilitation, we labelled nurse plants (Mimosa luisana) with N and measured its transfer to 14 other species in the community, spanning the range of phylogenetic distances to the nurse plant. Nurses established steeper N source-sink gradients with distant relatives, increasing N transfer toward these species. Nutrient sharing may provide long-term benefits to facilitated plants and may be an overlooked mechanism maintaining coexistence and increasing the phylogenetic diversity of plant communities.

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Fungal phylogenetic diversity drives plant facilitation

et al. 2016

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Plant-plant facilitation is a crucial ecological process, as many plant species (facilitated) require the presence of an established individual (nurse) to recruit. Some plant facilitative interactions disappear during the ontogenetic development of the facilitated plant but others persist, even when the two plants are adults. We test whether the persistence of plant facilitative interactions is explained by the phylogenetic diversity of mutualistic and non-mutualistic fungi that the nurse and the facilitated species add to the shared rhizosphere. We classify plant facilitative interactions as persistent and non-persistent interactions and quantify the phylogenetic diversity of mutualistic and non-mutualistic fungi added by the plant species to the shared rhizosphere. Our results show that the facilitated species add less phylogenetic diversity of non-mutualistic fungi when plant facilitative interactions persist than when they do not persist. However, persistent and non-persistent facilitative interactions did not differ in the phylogenetic diversity of mutualistic fungi added by the facilitated species to the shared rhizosphere. Finally, the fungal phylogenetic diversity added by the nurse to the shared rhizosphere did not differ between persistent and non-persistent interactions. This study suggests that considering the fungal associates of the plant species involved in facilitative interactions can shed light on the mechanisms of persistence for plant-plant interactions.

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Nurses experience reciprocal fitness benefits from their distantly related facilitated plants

Cited by 18 publications

References 59 publications

Incorporating phylogenetic metrics to microbial co‐occurrence networks based on amplicon sequences to discern community assembly processes

Incorporating phylogenetic metrics to microbial co‐occurrence networks based on amplicon sequences to discern community assembly processes

Nurse plants transfer more nitrogen to distantly related species

Fungal phylogenetic diversity drives plant facilitation

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