Abstract
Background and aims
Soil nutrients and light have major effects on the economics of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbioses. This study tests the main and interactive effects of soil fertility and light on AM fungal community.
Methods
We conducted a 3 year mesocosm experiment with a full two factorial design: light (full light or shade) and soil fertility (unfertilized or fertilized), on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Plant traits, soil characteristics and the AM fungal communities inside roots and in soils were measured.
Results
Shade reduced AM colonization of roots, fertilization reduced the hyphal abundance in the soil, and both factors reduced species richness of AM fungi inside plant roots. Fertilization exacerbated the negative impacts of shade on AM fungal abundance and diversity. We observed 15 phylotypes of AM fungi inside roots and ten morphotypes of AM fungal spores in the soil. Taxa responded differently to shade and fertilization and there was little congruence between the responses of fungi inside the roots and in the spore community.
Conclusions
Our findings indicate that both shade and fertilization reduce the abundance of AM fungi, but the two factors have different effects on the quality of plant roots as habitat for AM fungi.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Tianpeng Xie for conducting and maintaining the mesocosm experiment in field. This study was supported by the Key Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (40930533), the National Basic Research Program of China (2012CB026105), National Natural Foundation of China (31170482, 31300445, 31370450), PhD Programs Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China (2010021111002, 20110211110021, 20130211120005), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2013 M540780), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China (LZUJBKY-2013-92). The National Science Foundation of the USA provided support for NC Johnson through DEB-0842327.
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Responsible Editor: Angela Hodge.
G. Shi and Y. Liu contributed equally to this work
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Shi, G., Liu, Y., Johnson, N.C. et al. Interactive influence of light intensity and soil fertility on root-associated arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Plant Soil 378, 173–188 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-014-2022-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-014-2022-z