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Comparisons of AM fungal spore communities with the same hosts but different soil chemistries over local and geographic scales

  • Community ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are ubiquitous and ecologically important microbes in grasslands. Both the host plant species and soil properties have been suggested as potentially important factors structuring AM fungal communities based on studies within local field sites. However, characterizations of the communities in relation to both host plant identity and soil properties in natural plant communities across both local and broader geographic scales are rare. We examined the AM fungal spore communities associated with the same C4 grasses in two Eastern serpentine grasslands, where soils have elevated heavy metals, and two Iowa tallgrass prairie sites. We compared AM fungal spore communities among host plants within each site, looked for correlations between fungal communities and local soil properties, and then compared communities among sites. Spore communities did not vary with host plant species or correlate with local soil chemical properties at any site. They did not differ between the two serpentine sites or between the two prairie sites, despite geographic separation, but they did differ between serpentine and prairie. Soil characteristics are suggested as a driving force because spore communities were strongly correlated with soil properties when data from all four sites are considered, but climatic differences might also play a role.

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Acknowledgments

Funding for this study was provided by the National Science Foundation grant DEB 03-50091. We thank D. Badtke, J. Doherty, H. Edenborn, D. Gustafson, G. Houseal, P. Petraitis and V. Shrivastava for help with various aspects of the this project, and two anonymous reviewers for providing helpful suggestions about the manuscript. We are grateful to Chester County (Pennsylvania) Parks and Recreation, and the Iowa and Maryland Departments of Natural Resources for allowing us to work on lands they manage. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest, and all experiments in this study comply with the current laws of the United States of America where the experiments were performed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Baoming Ji & Brenda B. Casper

  2. Department of Biology and Microbiology, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI, 54901, USA

    Stephen P. Bentivenga

  3. Department of Biology, Indiana University, 1001 E. 3rd St., Jordan Hall 149, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA

    Baoming Ji

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  1. Baoming Ji
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  2. Stephen P. Bentivenga
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  3. Brenda B. Casper
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Correspondence to Baoming Ji.

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Communicated by Catherine Gehring.

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Ji, B., Bentivenga, S.P. & Casper, B.B. Comparisons of AM fungal spore communities with the same hosts but different soil chemistries over local and geographic scales. Oecologia 168, 187–197 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-2067-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-2067-0

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