The soil biotic community protects Rhododendron spp. across multiple clades from the oomycete Phytophthora cinnamomi at
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HIGHLIGHTED STUDENT RESEARCH
The soil biotic community protects Rhododendron spp. across multiple clades from the oomycete Phytophthora cinnamomi at a cost to plant growth Yu Liu1 · Juliana S. Medeiros2 · Jean H. Burns1 Received: 6 January 2020 / Accepted: 18 September 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The effects of whole soil biotic communities on plants is a result of positive and negative interactions from a complex suite of mutualists and pathogens. However, few experiments have evaluated the composite effects of whole soil biotic communities on plant growth and disease resistance. We conducted a factorial greenhouse experiment with 14 Rhododendron species grown with and without live conspecific soil biota and with and without the disease, Phytophthora cinnamomi. We tested the prediction that the presence of whole soil biotic communities influences survival in the presence of disease. We also explored functional trait correlations with disease susceptibility across the phylogeny. The presence of live soil biota led to higher survival in the presence of disease compared with sterilized soils, and the direction of this effect was consistent for seven species across four clades. The presence of live soil biota also significantly reduced plant growth rate and decreased shoot biomass, relative to plants grown in sterilized soil, indicating that live soil biota might influence plant allocation strategies. We found that Rhododendron species with higher Root Shoot Ratios were less susceptible to Phytophthora, suggesting that water relations influence disease susceptibility. Our findings that disease resistance and susceptibility occur independently across multiple clades and that whole soil biotic communities consistently enhance disease resistance across clades, suggest that soil biota may play an important role in disease resistance and can moderate disease-induced mortality. Keywords Plant-soil feedbacks · Phytophthora cinnamomi · Plant traits · Rhododendron spp · Soil biota effects
Communicated by Catherine Gehring. In this study, we compared the effects of whole soil biota, relative to sterilized soil, on the growth and mortality of 14 hododendron species with and without root rot disease (Phytophthora cinnamomi). Rhododendron forms ericoid mycorrhizal associations, and few studies have focused on this type of mutualistic interaction. We found that plants grown in the presence of live soil had higher survival with disease, but reduced growth rates and shoot biomass. The results were consistent across species from our different clades, which suggested that soil biota may play an important role in disease resistance. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04762-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Yu Liu [email protected] 1
Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106‑7080, USA
The Holden Arboretum, 9500 Sperry Road, Ki
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