Fungal symbiont diversity drives growth of Holcus lanatus depending on soil nutrient availability

Abstract

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi frequently colonise plant roots and can affect plant morphology and physiology through their contribution to plant nutrition. However, the functional role of AM fungi in the presence of other microbial symbionts, including widespread Mucoromycotina ‘fine root endophytes’ (MFRE) fungi, remains largely unknown. While both AM fungi and MFRE transfer nutrients, including nitrogen, from inorganic and organic sources to host plants, their combined effects on co‐colonised plants have only been investigated in liverworts. Here, we compare the morphology and physiology of the grass Holcus lanatus grown with an AM fungal community versus a more diverse symbiotic fungal community containing both AM fungi and MFRE. Holcus lanatus plants were grown in the presence of either a diverse MFRE+AM fungi soil inoculum or a multi‐species AM fungal inoculum. Plant traits associated with growth were quantified, along with fungal transfer of 15N tracer to plants from a variety of sources (ammonium chloride, alanine, glycine and algal necromass). Holcus lanatus grown with the AM fungal community had greater root and shoot growth during early development and prior to the addition of 15N‐labelled sources, compared with plants grown with the more diverse symbiotic fungal community. When nitrogen sources were made available to the fungal symbionts in the pot microcosms, plants growing with the MFRE+AM fungi soil inoculum had a faster growth rate than plants growing with the AM fungal community. At harvest, H. lanatus grown with the AM fungal community had a larger biomass, and there were no differences in 15N tracer assimilation in plants across the two fungal community treatments. Our results demonstrate that the diversity of fungal inocula in conjunction with soil nutrient availability determine the benefits derived by plants from diverse fungal symbionts. Our research contributes to understanding host plant outcomes in diverse multi‐symbiont scenarios. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.