Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 3, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1831
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Funding
- NERC [NE/F019033/1]
- NERC/World Universities Network Weathering Consortium [NE/C521001/1]
- Royal Society
- NERC [NE/F019033/1, NE/I027193/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/I027193/1, NE/F019033/1] Funding Source: researchfish
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The arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal symbiosis is widely hypothesized to have promoted the evolution of land plants from rootless gametophytes to rooted sporophytes during the mid-Palaeozoic (480-360 M Myr, ago), at a time coincident with a 90% fall in the atmospheric CO2 concentration ([CO2](a)). Here we show using standardized dual isotopic tracers (C-14 and 33P) that AM symbiosis efficiency (defined as plant P gain per unit of C invested into fungi) of liverwort gametophytes declines, but increases in the sporophytes of vascular plants (ferns and angiosperms), at 440 p. p. m. compared with 1,500 p. p. m. [CO2](a). These contrasting responses are associated with larger AM hyphal networks, and structural advances in vascular plant water-conducting systems, promoting P transport that enhances AM efficiency at 440 p. p. m. [CO2](a). Our results suggest that non-vascular land plants not only faced intense competition for light, as vascular land floras grew taller in the Palaeozoic, but also markedly reduced efficiency and total capture of P as [CO2](a) fell.
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