Journal
TRENDS IN ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
Volume 33, Issue 10, Pages 777-789Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2018.07.007
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- European Research Council [ERC335542]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The nutrient exchange mutualism between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMFs) and their host plants qualifies as a biological market, but several complications have hindered its appropriate use. First, fungal 'trading agents' are hard to identify because AMFs are potentially heterokaryotic, that is, they may contain large numbers of polymorphic nuclei. This means it is difficult to define and study a fungal 'individual' acting as an independent agent with a specific trading strategy. Second, because nutrient exchanges occur via communal structures (arbuscules), this temporarily reduces outbidding competition and transaction costs and hence resembles exchanges among divisions of firms, rather than traditional trade on markets. We discuss how fungal nuclei may coordinate their trading strategies, but nevertheless retain some independence, similar to human co-operatives (co-ops).
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