Ectomycorrhizal fungal diversity interacts with soil nutrients to predict plant growth despite weak plant-soil feedbacks
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Ectomycorrhizal fungal diversity interacts with soil nutrients to predict plant growth despite weak plant-soil feedbacks Jake Nash
&
Roger Laushman & Christopher Schadt
Received: 27 October 2019 / Accepted: 22 June 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Background and aims Plant-soil feedbacks are the result of multiple abiotic and biotic mechanisms. However, few studies have addressed how feedbacks vary based on abiotic context or attempted to identify microbiota responsible for feedbacks. We investigated whether plant-soil feedbacks of an ectomycorrhizal tree (Quercus macrocarpa) varied based on soil nutrient status and whether fungal community composition and diversity could explain feedback patterns. Methods We inoculated Q. macrocarpa seedlings with field-sampled soils taken from five soil origins – including heterospecific and conspecific trees and an old field – which were profiled using fungal DNA metabarcoding.
Results There was a positive home vs. away plant-soil feedback, though feedbacks with individual hosts were not significant regardless of fertilization. Still, hosts harbored distinctive fungal communities that were predictive of plant growth. There was a growth promotive effect of ectomycorrhizal OTU diversity that was weakened with fertilization, suggesting context-dependent relationships between plant growth and a guild of fungal mutualists. Conclusions Our results demonstrate that the hostspecific accumulation of functionally important soil microbes is not always sufficient to drive species level plant-soil feedbacks. Our data provide support for a role of ECM fungal diversity in mediating plant growth responses, though it is unclear whether this effect was direct or indirect.
Responsible Editor: Jeff R. Powell. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04616-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. J. Nash : R. Laushman Biology Department, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH 44074, USA J. Nash (*) Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA e-mail: [email protected] C. Schadt Biosciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37830, USA C. Schadt Microbiology Department, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37916, USA
Keywords Plant-soil feedback . Ectomycorrhizal . Soil biology . Fungal ecology . Quercus macrocarpa
Introduction The Janzen-Connell hypothesis proposes that negative distance-dependent and density-dependent effects cause reductions in the growth and survival of seedlings in a localized area surrounding conspecific adults (Connell 1971; Janzen 1970). These effects are postulated to confer a competitive advantage to heterospecific seedlings over conspecifics, thereby increasing alpha diversity (Bever et al. 2012). The Janzen-Connell hypothesis has received support from both simulation and empirical
Plant Soil
studies (Comita et al. 2014; Johnson et al. 2012; Mangan et al. 2010; Packer and Clay 2000; Zhu et al. 2015
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