Journal
NEW PHYTOLOGIST
Volume 209, Issue 3, Pages 1184-1195Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/nph.13720
Keywords
deciduous forest; ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi; mycorrhiza; phosphorus (P) cycling; soil
Categories
Funding
- Swedish research council FORMAS Grant [2008-1410]
- US Department of Energy-Office of Biological and Environmental Research-Terrestrial Ecosystem Science Program
- US National Science Foundation (DEB) [1153401]
- Magn Bergvalls and Carl Tryggers foundation
- Swedish research council VR Grant [2012-3950]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Although much is known about how trees and their associated microbes influence nitrogen cycling in temperate forest soils, less is known about biotic controls over phosphorus (P) cycling. Given that mycorrhizal fungi are instrumental for P acquisition and that the two dominant associations - arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) and ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi - possess different strategies for acquiring P, we hypothesized that P cycling would differ in stands dominated by trees associated with AM vs ECM fungi. We quantified soil solution P, microbial biomass P, and sequentially extracted inorganic and organic P pools from May to November in plots dominated by trees forming either AM or ECM associations in south-central Indiana, USA. Overall, fungal communities in AM and ECM plots were functionally different and soils exhibited fundamental differences in P cycling. Organic forms of P were more available in ECM plots than in AM plots. Yet inorganic P decreased and organic P accumulated over the growing season in both ECM and AM plots, resulting in increasingly P-limited microbial biomass. Collectively, our results suggest that P cycling in hardwood forests is strongly influenced by biotic processes in soil and that these are driven by plant-associated fungal communities.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available