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Scale-dependent niche axes of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi

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Abstract

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are mutualistic with most species of plants and are known to influence plant community diversity and composition. To better understand natural plant communities and the ecological processes they control it is important to understand what determines the distribution and diversity of AMF. We tested three putative niche axes: plant species composition, disturbance history, and soil chemistry against AMF species composition to determine which axis correlated most strongly with a changing AMF community. Due to a scale dependency we were not able to absolutely rank their importance, but we did find that each correlated significantly with AMF community change at our site. Among soil properties, pH and NO3 were found to be especially good predictors of AMF community change. In a similar analysis of the plant community we found that time since disturbance had by far the largest impact on community composition.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Fermi National Environmental Research Park for allowing us to sample the prairie restorations and A. C. McGraw for the spore identification. The research was supported by the United States Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, and Climate Change Research Division under contract W-31-109-Eng-38. The experiments discussed within this manuscript comply with the current laws of the United States of America and the state of Illinois.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, 1101 E. 57th Street, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA

    Michael S. Fitzsimons

  2. Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, USA

    Michael S. Fitzsimons, R. Michael Miller & Julie D. Jastrow

  3. Committee on Evolutionary Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    R. Michael Miller

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  1. Michael S. Fitzsimons
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  2. R. Michael Miller
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Correspondence to Michael S. Fitzsimons.

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Communicated by Jeremy Burdon.

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Fitzsimons, M.S., Miller, R.M. & Jastrow, J.D. Scale-dependent niche axes of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Oecologia 158, 117–127 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-008-1117-8

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