TY - JOUR
T1 - Root diameter predicts the extramatrical hyphal exploration distance of the ectomycorrhizal fungal community
AU - Chen, Weile
AU - Eissenstat, David M.
AU - Koide, Roger T.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Dr. Thomas Adams for collecting data of root length density and for his assistance in maintaining the common garden plantation. We also thank the Genomics Core Facility of Pennsylvania State University and the UWBC DNA Sequencing Facility for the assistance in Illumina sequencing. This project was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (IOS 1120482), the Pennsylvania State University J. Lloyd Huck Dissertation Research Grant, the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Federal Appropriations under Project PEN04591 and Accession number 1006803, and by funding from Brigham Young University.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Authors.
PY - 2018/4
Y1 - 2018/4
N2 - Locally coexisting tree species of temperate forests often vary widely in the diameter of their absorptive roots, resulting in contrasting strategies of root foraging within soil nutrient hot spots. We hypothesized that root diameter would also influence the extramatrical hyphal exploration distance of the mycorrhizal fungal community due to coevolution of the plant and fungal partners leading to functional complementarity. We collected absorptive roots from mature trees of nine ectomycorrhizal tree species in replicated monoculture plots of a plantation where the soil is relatively homogeneous. The identities of ectomycorrhizal fungal taxa and their relative abundances were determined by DNA sequencing. The hyphal exploration type (i.e., contact, short-distance, medium-distance or long-distance) was assigned to each taxon, allowing us to calculate an index of the abundance-weighted mean extramatrical hyphal exploration distance of the fungal community. Overall, there was a significant, positive correlation between root diameter and our index of hyphal exploration distance such that tree species with the thicker roots were associated with fungi with the longer hyphal exploration distance. Moreover, we found that root diameter negatively correlated with the proportion of contact ectomycorrhizal fungal taxa and positively correlated with the proportion of medium-distance ectomycorrhizal fungal taxa. Our results suggest that among temperate ectomycorrhizal tree species, root diameter selects for communities of mycorrhizal fungi of specific exploration distance in a way that is consistent with root-fungal functional complementarity in nutrient foraging.
AB - Locally coexisting tree species of temperate forests often vary widely in the diameter of their absorptive roots, resulting in contrasting strategies of root foraging within soil nutrient hot spots. We hypothesized that root diameter would also influence the extramatrical hyphal exploration distance of the mycorrhizal fungal community due to coevolution of the plant and fungal partners leading to functional complementarity. We collected absorptive roots from mature trees of nine ectomycorrhizal tree species in replicated monoculture plots of a plantation where the soil is relatively homogeneous. The identities of ectomycorrhizal fungal taxa and their relative abundances were determined by DNA sequencing. The hyphal exploration type (i.e., contact, short-distance, medium-distance or long-distance) was assigned to each taxon, allowing us to calculate an index of the abundance-weighted mean extramatrical hyphal exploration distance of the fungal community. Overall, there was a significant, positive correlation between root diameter and our index of hyphal exploration distance such that tree species with the thicker roots were associated with fungi with the longer hyphal exploration distance. Moreover, we found that root diameter negatively correlated with the proportion of contact ectomycorrhizal fungal taxa and positively correlated with the proportion of medium-distance ectomycorrhizal fungal taxa. Our results suggest that among temperate ectomycorrhizal tree species, root diameter selects for communities of mycorrhizal fungi of specific exploration distance in a way that is consistent with root-fungal functional complementarity in nutrient foraging.
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U2 - 10.1002/ecs2.2202
DO - 10.1002/ecs2.2202
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85045968480
VL - 9
JO - Ecosphere
JF - Ecosphere
SN - 2150-8925
IS - 4
M1 - e02202
ER -