Evidence of a selective and bi‐directional relationship between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal and bacterial communities co‐inhabiting plant roots

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) provide plants with vital mineral nutrients and co‐exist inside the roots alongside a complex community of bacterial endophytes. These co‐existing AMF and bacterial root communities have been studied individually and are known to be influenced in structure by diffe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental microbiology 2022-11, Vol.24 (11), p.5378-5391
Main Authors: Lastovetsky, Olga A., Caruso, Tancredi, Brennan, Fiona P., Wall, David P., McMahon, Sean, Doyle, Evelyn
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural ecosystems
Arbuscular mycorrhizas
Bacteria
Bacteria - genetics
Ecosystem
Endophytes
Environmental factors
Fungi
Mathematical models
Mineral nutrients
Mycorrhizae - genetics
Nutrients
Parameters
Plant communities
Plant roots
Plant Roots - microbiology
Plants
Roots
Soil - chemistry
Soil Microbiology
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Summary:Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) provide plants with vital mineral nutrients and co‐exist inside the roots alongside a complex community of bacterial endophytes. These co‐existing AMF and bacterial root communities have been studied individually and are known to be influenced in structure by different environmental parameters. However, the extent to which they are affected by environmental parameters and by each other is completely unknown. The current study addressed this knowledge gap by characterising AMF and bacterial communities inside plant roots from a natural and an agricultural ecosystem. Using multivariate modelling, the relative contribution of environmental parameters in structuring the two communities was quantified at different spatial scales. Using this model, it was possible to then remove the contribution of environmental parameters and show that the co‐existing AMF and bacterial communities were significantly correlated with each other, explaining up to 36% of each other's variance. Notably, this was not due to the presence of know AMF endobacteria, as removal of endobacterial reads maintained the significance of correlation. These findings provide the first empirical evidence of a selective and bi‐directional relationship between AMF and bacteria co‐inhibiting plant roots and indicate that a significant fraction of this covariation is due to biological and ecological interactions between them.
ISSN:1462-2912
1462-2920
DOI:10.1111/1462-2920.16227