Wetland plant species improve performance when inoculated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi: a meta-analysis of experimental pot studies

Abstract

The presence of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in wetlands is widespread. Wetlands are transition ecosystems between aquatic and terrestrial systems, where shallow water stands or moves over the land surface. The presence of AMF in wetlands suggests that they are ecologically significant; however, their function is not yet clearly understood. With the aim of determining the overall magnitude and direction of AMF effect on wetland plants associated with them in pot assays, we conducted a meta-analysis of data extracted from 48 published studies. The AMF effect on their wetland hosts was estimated through different plant attributes reported in the studies including nutrient acquisition, photosynthetic activity, biomass production, and saline stress reduction. As the common metric, we calculated the standardized unbiased mean difference (Hedges' d) of wetland plant performance attributes in AMF-inoculated plants versus non-AMF-inoculated plants. Also, we examined a series of moderator variables regarding symbiont identity and experimental procedures that could influence the magnitude and direction of an AMF effect. Response patterns indicate that wetland plants significantly benefit from their association with AMF, even under flooded conditions. The beneficial AMF effect differed in magnitude depending on the plant attribute selected to estimate it in the published studies. The nature of these benefits depends on the identity of the host plant, phosphorus addition, and water availability in the soil where both symbionts develop. Our meta-analysis synthetizes the relationship of AMF with wetland plants in pot assays and suggests that AMF may be of comparable importance to wetland plants as to terrestrial plants.

Exploring plant root-fungal interactions in a neotropical freshwater wetland

“…Consistently with results presented here, AMF spores extracted from the rhizosphere soil of colonized native and exotic Fabaceae showed the dominance of Glomerales, but Archaeosporales and Diversisporales were also present (Tibbett et al 2008). In a recent meta-analysis, Ramírez-Viga et al (2018) concluded that AMF improve plant performance in wetlands through higher nutrient acquisition, photosynthetic activity, biomass generation, and mitigation of abiotic stress. However, understanding the functionality of AMF in M. pigra plants is a future task.…”

The effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal species and taxonomic groups on stressed and unstressed plants: a global meta‐analysis

“…Mixed‐effect models allow the specification of fixed effects and of random terms. To avoid the nonindependence of the data we included the study identifier (ID), the experiment ID nested within study ID and host ID as random terms in order to contemplate and control the random variation of several outcomes from a single study, treatment or host identity (Tuck et al ., 2014; Ramírez‐Viga et al ., 2018; Primieri et al ., 2022). Moderator levels with three or fewer outcomes (i.e.…”

Temporal tracking of quantum-dot apatite across in vitro mycorrhizal networks shows how host demand can influence fungal nutrient transfer strategies

“…The fungus then exchanges these nutrients for C compounds from the host plant [16][17][18]. Transfer of resources from a fungus to the host has been shown to be highly variable, and depend on factors including available soil nutrients [19,20], host species [21], host age [22], light availability [23][24][25][26][27], and even host sex [28]. Because mycorrhizal networks can connect several plants simultaneously, the transfer of resource across a shared fungal network can shift depending on these factors.…”