title: Mycorrhizal fungi and roots are complementary in foraging within nutrient patches.
abstract: The roots of the majority of tree species are associated with either arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) or ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi. The absorptive roots of tree species also vary widely in their diameter. The linkages between root thickness, mycorrhiza type and nutrient foraging are poorly understood. We conducted a large root ingrowth experiment in the field to investigate how absorptive roots of varying thickness and their associated fungi (AM vs. EM) exploit different nutrient patches (inorganic and organic) in a common garden. In nutrient-rich patches, thin-root tree species more effectively proliferated absorptive roots than thick-root tree species, whereas thick-root tree species proliferated more mycorrhizal fungal biomass than thin-root tree species. Moreover, nutrient patches enriched with organic materials resulted in greater root and mycorrhizal fungal proliferation compared to those enriched with inorganic nutrients. Irrespective of root morphology, AM tree species had higher root foraging precision than mycorrhizal hyphae foraging precision within organic patches, whereas EM tree species exhibited the opposite. Our findings that roots and mycorrhizal fungi are complementary in foraging within nutrient patches provide new insights into species coexistence and element cycling in terrestrial ecosystems.
authors.affiliation: College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.|Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Weile
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Thomas S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Xing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Le
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Michael Luke
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: McCormack
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental and Plant Biology, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, 45701, USA.
authors.forename: Jared L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: DeForest
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA.|Department of Biology, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 84602, USA.
authors.forename: Roger T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Koide
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA.
authors.forename: David M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Eissenstat
mesh_terms: D018533:Biomass; D005658:Fungi; D038821:Mycorrhizae; D018517:Plant Roots; D012987:Soil; D014197:Trees
chemical_list: D012987:Soil
keywords: arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi; ectomycorrhizal fungi; functional complementarity; nutrient foraging; root morphology; species coexistence; tree species