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Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi equalize differences in plant fitness and facilitate plant species coexistence through niche differentiation

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Abstract

Mycorrhizal fungi are essential to the establishment of the vast majority of plant species but are often conceptualized with contradictory roles in plant community assembly. On the one hand, host-specific mycorrhizal fungi may allow a plant to be competitively dominant by enhancing growth. On the other hand, host-specific mycorrhizal fungi with different functional capabilities may increase nutrient niche partitioning, allowing plant species to coexist. Here, to resolve the balance of these two contradictory forces, we used a controlled greenhouse study to manipulate the presence of two main types of mycorrhizal fungus, ectomycorrhizal fungi and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, and used a range of conspecific and heterospecific competitor densities to investigate the role of mycorrhizal fungi in plant competition and coexistence. We find that the presence of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi equalizes fitness differences between plants and stabilizes competition to create conditions for host species coexistence. Our results show how below-ground mutualisms can shift outcomes of plant competition and that a holistic view of plant communities that incorporates their mycorrhizal partners is important in predicting plant community dynamics.

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Fig. 1: Experimental design for quantifying competitive ability29,87.
Fig. 2: The effects of mycorrhizal fungi on plant growth and nutritional niche in the absence of competition.
Fig. 3: The role of mycorrhizal fungi in the competitive dynamics between plant species.
Fig. 4: The effects of mycorrhizal fungi on plant nutritional niche under different types of competition.
Fig. 5: Symbiotic mutualisms help to structure dynamics of plant coexistence.

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Data availability

All data are available via the Dryad Digital Repository at https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.rxwdbrvjb.

Code availability

All code for analysis is available via Github at https://github.com/ClaireWilling/MycorrhizaCoexist.git.

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Acknowledgements

We thank K. N. Chin and J. M. M. Ferré for their help in planting seedlings for this experiment. Additionally, we thank K. N. Chin for her help in creating art for this manuscript. We thank L. D. L Anderegg for his input on the study design and feedback on early versions of this manuscript. K.G.P. is a Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Fellow in the programme Fungal Kingdom: Threats and Opportunities and is supported by a United States Department of Energy (DOE) Award DE-SC0023661. C.E.W., J.J.Y., A.M.C. and K.G.P were all supported by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career (CAREER) Award 1845544 for this work, which was awarded to K.G.P.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Claire E. Willing, Jay J. Yeam, Alex M. Cessna & Kabir G. Peay

  2. School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Claire E. Willing

  3. Institute of Integrative Biology, Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Joe Wan

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Contributions

C.E.W. and K.G.P. planned and designed the research. C.E.W. and K.G.P. conducted field work. C.E.W., J.J.Y. and A.M.C. conducted the laboratory work. C.E.W. analysed and interpreted the data with critical contributions from J.W., J.J.Y., A.M.C. and K.G.P. The manuscript was written by C.E.W. and all co-authors provided important contributions and critical revisions. All authors approve of the final version of this manuscript.

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Correspondence to Claire E. Willing or Kabir G. Peay.

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Willing, C.E., Wan, J., Yeam, J.J. et al. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi equalize differences in plant fitness and facilitate plant species coexistence through niche differentiation. Nat Ecol Evol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02526-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02526-1

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