Fungal phylogenetic diversity drives plant facilitation

Plant–plant facilitation is a crucial ecological process, as many plant species (facilitated) require the presence of an established individual (nurse) to recruit. Some plant facilitative interactions disappear during the ontogenetic development of the facilitated plant but others persist, even when...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Oecologia 2016-06, Vol.181 (2), p.533-541
Main Authors: Montesinos-Navarro, Alicia, Segarra-Moragues, J G, Valiente-Banuet, A, Verdu, M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biomedical and Life Sciences
COMMUNITY ECOLOGY – ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Ecology
Fungi
Hydrology/Water Resources
Life Sciences
Nurses
Phylogeny
Plant Sciences
Plant species
Plants - classification
Rhizosphere
Species diversity
Symbiosis
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Summary:Plant–plant facilitation is a crucial ecological process, as many plant species (facilitated) require the presence of an established individual (nurse) to recruit. Some plant facilitative interactions disappear during the ontogenetic development of the facilitated plant but others persist, even when the two plants are adults. We test whether the persistence of plant facilitative interactions is explained by the phylogenetic diversity of mutualistic and non-mutualistic fungi that the nurse and the facilitated species add to the shared rhizosphere. We classify plant facilitative interactions as persistent and non-persistent interactions and quantify the phylogenetic diversity of mutualistic and non-mutualistic fungi added by the plant species to the shared rhizosphere. Our results show that the facilitated species add less phylogenetic diversity of non-mutualistic fungi when plant facilitative interactions persist than when they do not persist. However, persistent and non-persistent facilitative interactions did not differ in the phylogenetic diversity of mutualistic fungi added by the facilitated species to the shared rhizosphere. Finally, the fungal phylogenetic diversity added by the nurse to the shared rhizosphere did not differ between persistent and non-persistent interactions. This study suggests that considering the fungal associates of the plant species involved in facilitative interactions can shed light on the mechanisms of persistence for plant–plant interactions.
ISSN:0029-8549
1432-1939
DOI:10.1007/s00442-016-3586-5