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Modelling facilitation or competition within a root system: importance of the overlap of root depletion and accumulation zones

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Abstract

Aims

The concept of intra-plant, inter-root competition considers the overlap of nutrient depletion zones around roots, but neglects the spatial pattern of root exudates that can increase nutrient availability. We tested the hypothesis that interactions between nutrient accumulation zones due to exudation by different roots can lead to intra-plant inter-root facilitation.

Methods

We used the PARIS model (Raynaud et al. 2008) to simulate phosphorus uptake by a population of roots that are able to increase phosphorus availability by exuding citrate. We carried out several simulations with the same parameters but with increasing root density in order to study out if changes in root densities would alter nutrient uptake per unit root.

Results

Emerging relationships between root uptake efficiency and root length density indicated cases of inter-root competition or facilitation. The sizes of the accumulation and depletion zones were calculated to explain these results. Our simulations showed a continuum between cases of inter-root competition and facilitation. Facilitation occurred at low exudation rates, when phosphorus supply was not saturated within the phosphorus depletion zone surrounding roots. Low exudation systems led to a lower phosphorus uptake per unit root length, but minimized phosphorus losses in the process.

Conclusions

Based on our model, we derived conditions that allowed predicting whether competition, facilitation or no interaction, is the dominant interaction between roots within a root system, based on the different distances to which an isolated root alters P concentration and supply.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Shayne Flint and Ian Davies for their help in designing the model on 3Worlds. We thank Eric Lateltin and reviewers for constructive comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. This work was supported by the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche, grant number ANR-07-CIS7-001 (3Worlds project).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences – Paris, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ. Paris 06, CNRS, INRA, IRD, Univ Paris Diderot Paris 07, UPEC, UMR 7618, Tour 44-45, 4 place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France

    Henri de Parseval, Sébastien Barot, Jacques Gignoux, Jean-Christophe Lata & Xavier Raynaud

  2. Department of Geoecology and Geochemistry, Institute of Natural Resources, Tomsk Polytechnic University, Lenin Avenue, 30, 634050, Tomsk, Russia

    Jean-Christophe Lata

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  1. Henri de Parseval
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  2. Sébastien Barot
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  4. Jean-Christophe Lata
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  5. Xavier Raynaud
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Correspondence to Xavier Raynaud.

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de Parseval, H., Barot, S., Gignoux, J. et al. Modelling facilitation or competition within a root system: importance of the overlap of root depletion and accumulation zones. Plant Soil 419, 97–111 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-017-3321-y

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