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Peppermint trees shift their phosphorus-acquisition strategy along a strong gradient of plant-available phosphorus by increasing their transpiration at very low phosphorus availability

  • Physiological ecology - original research
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Abstract

Some plant species use different strategies to acquire phosphorus (P) dependent on environmental conditions, but studies investigating the relative significance of P-acquisition strategies with changing P availability are rare. We combined a natural P availability gradient and a glasshouse study with 10 levels of P supplies to investigate the roles of rhizosphere carboxylates and transpiration-driven mass flow in P acquisition by Agonis flexuosa. Leaf P concentrations of A. flexuosa decreased and leaf manganese (Mn) concentrations increased with decreasing soil P concentration along a dune chronosequence. In the glasshouse, in response to decreasing P supply, shoot growth and root length decreased, leaf P and Mn concentrations decreased, rhizosphere carboxylates decreased, transpiration rate and transpiration ratio increased and the percentage of root length colonized by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi was unchanged. Although it was proved leaf Mn concentration was a good proxy for rhizosphere carboxylate amounts in the glasshouse study, the enhanced plant P acquisition at low P supply was related to transpiration-induced mass flow rather than carboxylates. We deduced that the higher leaf Mn concentrations in low soil P availability of the field were likely a result of increased mass flow. In summary, as soil P availability declined, A. flexuosa can shift its P-acquisition strategy away from a mycorrhizal mode towards one involving increased mass flow.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Chinese National Natural Scientific Foundation (31570455) and Youth Innovation Promotion Association, CAS (2016381). We are grateful to Rob Creasy and Bill Piasini at the School of Plant Biology’s Plant Growth Facility for their great help with the glasshouse experiment, to Greg Cawthray for help with HPLC, to Evonne Walker for help with mycorrhizal check experiments, to Elizabeth Halladin for providing leaf area meters and to Wenli Ding for helpful advice on the experiments. Megan Ryan was funded by an ARC Future Fellowship (FT140100103).

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  1. Gang Huang

    Present address: State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, 830011, China

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences and Institute of Agriculture, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia

    Gang Huang, Patrick E. Hayes & Hans Lambers

  2. School of Agriculture and Environment and Institute of Agriculture, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia

    Gang Huang, Megan H. Ryan & Jiayin Pang

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  1. Gang Huang
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  2. Patrick E. Hayes
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  3. Megan H. Ryan
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  4. Jiayin Pang
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  5. Hans Lambers
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Contributions

HL and GH conceived and designed the experiments. GH and PH performed the experiments. GH and PH analyzed the data. GH and PH wrote the manuscript; other authors provided editorial advice.

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Correspondence to Gang Huang.

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Communicated by Kouki Hikosaka.

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Huang, G., Hayes, P.E., Ryan, M.H. et al. Peppermint trees shift their phosphorus-acquisition strategy along a strong gradient of plant-available phosphorus by increasing their transpiration at very low phosphorus availability. Oecologia 185, 387–400 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-017-3961-x

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