Journal Article

Ectomycorrhizal fungi alter soil food webs and the functional potential of bacterial communities

Velickovic, Marija, Bloodsworth, Kent, Hutchinson, Chelsea, Bogar, Laura M., Pellitier, Peter T., Del Rio, Anastacia, Berrios, Louis, Yeam, Jay, Zemaitis, Kevin, Peay, Kabir G., Venturini, Andressa M., Willing, Claire E., Velickovic, Dusan, Lipton, Mary S., Bogar, Glade D., Ansell, T. Bertie

2024

Overview

Understanding how soil microbes interact with one another and their host plant will help us combat the negative effects that climate change has on terrestrial ecosystems. Unfortunately, we lack a clear understanding of how the presence of ectomycorrhizal fungi (EcMF)—one of the most dominant soil microbial groups on Earth—shapes belowground organic resources and the composition of bacterial communities. To address this knowledge gap, we profiled lipid and non-lipid metabolites in soils and plant roots, characterized soil bacterial communities, and compared soils amended either with or without EcMF. Our results show that the presence of EcMF changes soil organic resource availability, impacts the proliferation of different bacterial communities (in terms of both type and potential function), and primes plant root chemistry for pathogen suppression and energy conservation. Our findings therefore provide much-needed insight into how two of the most dominant soil microbial groups interact with one another and with their host plant.

• Publisher: American Society for Microbiology
• Subject: Bacteria / Bacteria - genetics / Bacteria - metabolism / bacteria-mycorrhizal fungi interactions / bacterial taxa-function relationships / BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES / Biogeochemistry / Climate change / Community structure / Ectomycorrhizas / Energy conservation / Experiments / Food Chain / Food plants / Food webs / forest ecology / Fungi / Host plants / Host-Microbial Interactions / Metabolites / Metabolomics / Microbiomes / Microbiota - physiology / multi-omics / Mycorrhizae - physiology / Organic soils / Pathogens / Pinus - microbiology / Plant growth / Plant Roots - metabolism / Plant Roots - microbiology / Reactive oxygen species / Research Article / Resource availability / Seeds / Soil - chemistry / soil food webs / Soil Microbiology / Soil microorganisms / Soil nutrients / Symbiosis / Terrestrial ecosystems / tripartite interactions