Journal Article

Host identity is a dominant driver of mycorrhizal fungal community composition during ecosystem development

Richardson, Sarah J, Martínez‐García, Laura B, Peltzer, Duane A, Tylianakis, Jason M, Dickie, Ian A

2015

Overview

Little is known about the response of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities to ecosystem development. We use a long‐term soil chronosequence that includes ecosystem progression and retrogression to quantify the importance of host plant identity as a factor driving fungal community composition during ecosystem development. We identified arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and plant species from 50 individual roots from each of 10 sites spanning 5–120 000 yr of ecosystem age using terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T‐RFLP), Sanger sequencing and pyrosequencing. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities were highly structured by ecosystem age. There was strong niche differentiation, with different groups of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) being characteristic of early succession, ecosystem progression and ecosystem retrogression. Fungal alpha diversity decreased with ecosystem age, whereas beta diversity was high at early stages and lower in subsequent stages. A total of 39% of the variance in fungal communities was explained by host plant and site age, 29% of which was attributed to host and the interaction between host and site (24% and 5%, respectively). The strong response of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to ecosystem development appears to be largely driven by plant host identity, supporting the concept that plant and fungal communities are tightly coupled rather than independently responding to habitat.

• Publisher: Academic Press,New Phytologist Trust,Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subject: Age / arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal succession / Arbuscular mycorrhizas / Biodiversity / Biomass / Chronosequences / Community composition / Community identity / community structure / Ecological succession / Ecosystem / ecosystem progression / ecosystem retrogression / Ecosystems / fungal communities / Fungi / habitats / Herbivores / Host plants / long‐term chronosequence / Molecular Sequence Data / Multivariate Analysis / Mycology / Mycorrhizae - genetics / Mycorrhizae - physiology / mycorrhizal fungi / Pedogenesis / Plant communities / Plant species / Plants / Plants - microbiology / Polymorphism / pyrosequencing / Restriction fragment length polymorphism / roots / sequence analysis / Sequence Analysis, DNA / soil / Soil ecology / Soil fungi / soil nutrient gradients / Species / species diversity / Synecology / terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T‐RFLP) / variance / vesicular arbuscular mycorrhizae