Past spatial structure of plant communities determines arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal community assembly

Abstract

Due to the importance of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in ecosystem productivity, a key ecological question is how do their communities assemble? As plant spatial patterns constitute a mosaic of AM fungi habitats, we hypothesized that AM fungal community assembly is determined by plant community structure, both in space and time. We tested our hypothesis by sampling individuals of two host‐plant species, Brachypodium pinnatum and Elytrigia repens, from experimental communities cultivated in mesocosms, and assessed their AM fungal root colonizers by mass sequencing. We related AM fungal community structure to the distribution of neighbouring plant species at different spatio‐temporal scales. We demonstrated that AM fungal community assembly depends mostly on past plant spatial patterns at a small spatial scale (5 cm), indicating that plants growing at given locations leave a footprint on the AM fungi community. This spatial scale of response was also influenced by the host‐plant species, probably by its clonal propagation. Synthesis. Overall, we highlighted that processes involved in Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal community assembly do not operate at the rough scale of the overall plant community mosaic but are instead locally determined, delineating the AM fungal ‘eye‐view’ of the host‐plant community.

Effect of floristic composition and configuration on plant root mycobiota: a landscape transposition at a small scale

“…This focal plant species is a common grassland plant that has been shown to support a wide range of fungi (Bittebiere et al, 2019), as with other species of the same genus (Donn et al, 2017). This focal plant species is a common grassland plant that has been shown to support a wide range of fungi (Bittebiere et al, 2019), as with other species of the same genus (Donn et al, 2017).…”

“…Our aim here was to study plant–fungus interactions using the passenger hypothesis, to disentangle the effect of the heterogeneity of plant cover (in composition and configuration) and plant primary productivity (used as a proxy of root mass) on the root fungal endosphere assemblages of Brachypodium pinnatum . This focal plant species is a common grassland plant that has been shown to support a wide range of fungi (Bittebiere et al , ), as with other species of the same genus (Donn et al , ). To test the effect of plant heterogeneity and primary productivity, we grew a range of manipulated plant communities in a homogeneous environment (semicontrolled growing conditions in an experimental garden) to represent a wide range of floristic compositions and configurations.…”

The influence of host‐plant connectivity on fungal assemblages in the root microbiota of Brachypodium pinnatum

“…These neighboring species may display different AMF assemblages and thus enrich the local soil with them, from which AMFs are recruited by B. pinnatum . Fungal assemblages of neighboring plants have indeed been shown to impact the AMF root composition of plants located within a few centimeters from them (Shi et al , Bittebiere et al ).…”

“…It displays a clonal plant that forms aggregated patches thanks to its phalanx growth form (sensu Lovett‐Doust ). B. pinnatum root‐associated mycobiota has been shown to differ depending on the surrounding plant composition and configuration (Bittebiere et al , Mony et al ). Individual B. pinnatum were sampled in 16 outdoor mesocosms (1.30 × 1.30 × 0.25 m) encompassing four different compositions of herbaceous grassland plant species, following an additive design, and with four replicates for each treatment: (1) a B. pinnatum monoculture, (2) a two‐species mixtures comprised B. pinnatum and Elytrigia repens , (3) a four‐species mixture comprised B. pinnatum , Agrostis tenuis , Festuca rubra , and Anthemis vulgaris , and (4) an eight‐species mixture comprised of the four species of mixture 3, plus Elytrigia repens , Agrostis stolonifera , Holcus mollis , and Ranunculus repens .…”

Quantitative partition of the rhizosphere microbiota assembly processes

“…Measurements of the degree of plant influence on the assembly of the rhizosphere microbiome would offer an improved assessment of the co-evolved fraction of rhizosphere microorganisms. It has recently been demonstrated that plants can leave a ‘fingerprint’ of their endosphere microbiome on the soil reservoir [9]. In an environment where plant diversity is low, one would expect there to be a pronounced influence of plants on the soil reservoir.…”