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Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Compete Asymmetrically for Amino Acids with Native and Invasive Solidago

  • Plant Microbe Interactions
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Abstract

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and soil amino acids both affect plant performance. However, little is known about how AMF compete for amino acids with native and invasive congeners. We conducted a factorial experiment (inoculation, native and invasive species, and amino acids) to examine the competition for amino acids between soil microbes and both native and invasive congeners. The competition for amino acids between AMF and invasive Solidago canadensis was weaker than that observed between AMF and native S. decurrens. This asymmetric competition increased the growth advantage of S. canadensis over S. decurrens. The efficacy (biomass production per unit of nitrogen supply) of amino acids compared to ammonium was smaller in S. canadensis than in S. decurrens when both species were grown without inoculation, but the opposite was the case when both species were grown with AMF. AMF and all microbes differentially altered four phenotypic traits (plant height, leaf chlorophyll content, leaf number, and root biomass allocation) and the pathways determining the effects of amino acids on growth advantages. These findings suggest that AMF could enhance plant invasiveness through asymmetric competition for amino acids and that amino acid-driven invasiveness might be differentially regulated by different microbial guilds.

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Data availability

The data of the current study are now available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31971552).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China

    Hong-Wei Yu & Wei-Ming He

  2. College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Wei-Ming He

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  1. Hong-Wei Yu
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Contributions

W.M.H. and H.W.Y. conceived and designed the experiments. H.W.Y. performed the experiments. H.W.Y. and W.M.H. analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Wei-Ming He.

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Yu, HW., He, WM. Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Compete Asymmetrically for Amino Acids with Native and Invasive Solidago. Microb Ecol 84, 131–140 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-021-01841-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-021-01841-5

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