Does responsiveness to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi depend on plant invasive status?

Abstract

Differences in the direction and degree to which invasive alien and native plants are influenced by mycorrhizal associations could indicate a general mechanism of plant invasion, but whether or not such differences exist is unclear. Here, we tested whether mycorrhizal responsiveness varies by plant invasive status while controlling for phylogenetic relatedness among plants with two large grassland datasets. Mycorrhizal responsiveness was measured for 68 taxa from the Northern Plains, and data for 95 taxa from the Central Plains were included. Nineteen percent of taxa from the Northern Plains had greater total biomass with mycorrhizas while 61% of taxa from the Central Plains responded positively. For the Northern Plains taxa, measurable effects often depended on the response variable (i.e., total biomass, shoot biomass, and root mass ratio) suggesting varied resource allocation strategies when roots are colonized by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. In both datasets, invasive status was nonrandomly distributed on the phylogeny. Invasive taxa were mainly from two clades, that is, Poaceae and Asteraceae families. In contrast, mycorrhizal responsiveness was randomly distributed over the phylogeny for taxa from the Northern Plains, but nonrandomly distributed for taxa from the Central Plains. After controlling for phylogenetic similarity, we found no evidence that invasive taxa responded differently to mycorrhizas than other taxa. Although it is possible that mycorrhizal responsiveness contributes to invasiveness in particular species, we find no evidence that invasiveness in general is associated with the degree of mycorrhizal responsiveness. However, mycorrhizal responsiveness among species grown under common conditions was highly variable, and more work is needed to determine the causes of this variation.

Are two strategies better than one? Manipulation of seed density and soil community in an experimental prairie restoration

“…The non‐native species, rather than the native species, were suppressed in the inoculated subplots across seeding densities. Previous work has shown variable results in the responsiveness of non‐native species (Reinhart et al ) to inoculation with native soil, but some research indicates that plant–soil‐feedback in native soil communities can be disadvantageous to invasive plant species (Bunn et al ; Kulmatiski ; Smith et al ). While non‐native species were the smallest portion of cover in the study, they represent a large portion of ongoing expense and effort in maintaining restorations (Rowe ; Trowbridge et al ).…”

Mycorrhizal fungi influence global plant biogeography

“…This driver may be dominant in mainland regions, where soil disturbance has been shown to reduce the presence of mycorrhizal fungi 35 . While individual studies have found differences in the proportion of mycorrhizal plant species between native and naturalized floras 27,[35][36][37][38] , they were mostly conducted on small scales and within mainlands. A comprehensive global analysis of factors influencing the distribution of mycorrhizal plants is required to test for general patterns.…”

Facultative mycorrhizal associations promote plant naturalization worldwide

“…Conceptual frameworks and meta-analyses (Pringle et al 2009, Meisner et al 2014 show how symbiotic fungi influence the success, failure, or trajectories of plant invasions. However, most studies assessing the role of mycorrhizal symbiosis in the plant invasion process have so far focused on the regional scale ( Stajerov a et al 2009, Hempel et al 2013, Bunn et al 2015, Menzel et al 2017, 2018, Reinhart et al 2017, were based on a limited number of plant species (Callaway et al 2004(Callaway et al , 2008, or were conducted at the community level (Checinska Sielaff et al 2019). Therefore, the effects of mycorrhizal associations on plant naturalization and invasion success at the global scale are still largely unknown.…”