Abstract
Root-associating arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi foster vegetation recovery in degraded habitats. AM fungi increase nutrient availability for host plants; therefore, their importance is expected to be higher when nutrient availability is low. However, little is known about how small-scale variation in nutrient availability influences plant and AM fungal communities in a stable ecosystem. We conducted a 2-year field study in the understorey of a boreonemoral forest where we examined plant and AM fungal communities at microsites (15 cm diameter) with intact vegetation cover and at disturbed microsites where vegetation was cleared away and soil was sterilized to remove soil biota. We manipulated soil nutrient content (increased with fertilizer, unchanged, or decreased with sucrose addition) and fungal activity (natural or suppressed by fungicide addition) at these microsites. After two vegetation seasons, manipulations with nutrient content resulted in significant, although moderate, differences in the content of soil nutrients (e.g. in soil phosphorus). Suppression of fungal activity resulted in lower richness, abundance and phylogenetic diversity of AM fungal community, independently of microsite type and soil fertility level. Plant species richness and diversity decreased when fungal activity was suppressed at disturbed but not in intact microsites. The correlation between plant and AM fungal communities was not influenced by microsite type or soil fertility. We conclude that small-scale variation in soil fertility and habitat integrity does not influence the interactions between plants and AM fungi. The richness, but not composition, of AM fungal communities recovered fast after small-scale disturbance and supported the recovery of species-rich vegetation.
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The datasets used and analysed during the current study, as well as the code used in the analyses, are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. The representative sequences of each VT reported in this paper have been deposited in European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Nucleotide Sequence Database under accession numbers LR993083-LR993200, which can be publicly accessed at [http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/view/LR993083-LR993200].
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Annika Uibopuu, Ülle Saks and Siim-Kaarel Sepp for technical assistance, and to Robert B. Davis for comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.
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This study was funded by grants from the University of Tartu (PLTOM20903), the Estonian Research Council (MOBTP105, PRG1065) and by the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence EcolChange).
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MM, MZ, and KK designed the experiment and conducted fieldwork. SL, KK, and MV generated sequencing data and molecular analyses. SL and KK performed statistical analyses and wrote the manuscript with input from all other authors.
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Liu, S., Moora, M., Vasar, M. et al. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi promote small-scale vegetation recovery in the forest understorey. Oecologia 197, 685–697 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-05065-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-05065-9