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Chemical defense, mycorrhizal colonization and growth responses in Plantago lanceolata L.

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Abstract

Allelochemicals defend plants against herbivore and pathogen attack aboveground and belowground. Whether such plant defenses incur ecological costs by reducing benefits from plant mutualistic symbionts is largely unknown. We explored a potential trade-off between inherent plant chemical defense and belowground mutualism with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in Plantago lanceolata L., using plant genotypes from lines selected for low and high constitutive levels of the iridoid glycosides (IG) aucubin and catalpol. As selection was based on IG concentrations in leaves, we first examined whether IG concentrations covaried in roots. Root and leaf IG concentrations were strongly positively correlated among genotypes, indicating genetic interdependence of leaf and root defense. We then found that root AMF arbuscule colonization was negatively correlated with root aucubin concentration. This negative correlation was observed both in plants grown with monocultures of Glomus intraradices and in plants colonized from whole-field soil inoculum. Overall, AMF did not affect total biomass of plants; an enhancement of initial shoot biomass was offset by a lower root biomass and reduced regrowth after defoliation. Although the precise effects of AMF on plant biomass varied among genotypes, plants with high IG levels and low AMF arbuscule colonization in roots did not produce less biomass than plants with low IG and high AMF arbuscule colonization. Therefore, although an apparent trade-off was observed between high root chemical defense and AMF arbuscule colonization, this did not negatively affect the growth responses of the plants to AMF. Interestingly, AMF induced an increase in root aucubin concentration in the high root IG genotype of P. lanceolata. We conclude that AMF does not necessarily stimulate plant growth, that direct plant defense by secondary metabolites does not necessarily reduce potential benefits from AMF, and that AMF can enhance concentrations of root chemical defenses, but that these responses are plant genotype-dependent.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Hafiz Maherali, Lewis Melville and Nora Magyara for their support and Richard Bardgett for useful suggestions on an earlier manuscript draft. The research was funded by Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO; Talent Postdoctoral Scholarship nr. S86-196) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Publication 4491 Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW). We declare that the experiments comply with the current laws of the country in which they were performed.

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  1. Gerlinde Barbra De Deyn

    Present address: Soil and Ecosystem Ecology Laboratory, Department of Biological Sciences, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada

    Gerlinde Barbra De Deyn & J. N. Klironomos

  2. Department of Multitrophic Interactions, Centre for Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology, P.O. Box 40, 6666 ZG, Heteren, The Netherlands

    Gerlinde Barbra De Deyn, A. Biere, W. H. van der Putten & R. Wagenaar

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  1. Gerlinde Barbra De Deyn
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Correspondence to Gerlinde Barbra De Deyn.

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Communicated by Julia Koricheva.

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De Deyn, G.B., Biere, A., van der Putten, W.H. et al. Chemical defense, mycorrhizal colonization and growth responses in Plantago lanceolata L.. Oecologia 160, 433–442 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-009-1312-2

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