Towards management of invasive ectomycorrhizal fungi

The ecology of ectomycorrhizal fungi

The ecology of ectomycorrhizal fungi

Ectomycorrhizal fungi in mineral soil

Ectomycorrhizal fungi are mutualistic symbionts of many forest trees and play a major role in nutrient uptake. They form diverse communities in boreal forest soils but functional differences within this group of fungi remain largely unknown. We study ectomycorrhzal fungi in mineral soil to determine how abiotic preferences influence their spatial distribution in stratified soil profiles. This i...

The invasive plant Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard) inhibits ectomycorrhizal fungi in its introduced range

1. Ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi play key roles in forest ecosystems, but the potential effects of invasive plants on EM fungal communities have not been assessed. In this study, we tested whether the non-mycorrhizal herbaceous plant Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard) can alter the abundance of EM fungal communities in North America. 2. In three forests in New England, USA, we compared EM root ti...

Competition-function tradeoffs in ectomycorrhizal fungi

Background. The extent to which ectomycorrhizal fungi mediate primary production, carbon storage, and nutrient remineralization in terrestrial ecosystems depends upon fungal community composition. However, the factors that govern community composition at the root system scale are not well understood. Here, we explore a potential tradeoff between ectomycorrhizal fungal competitive ability and en...