Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities are phylogenetically clustered at small scales

Horn, Sebastian; Caruso, Tancredi; Verbruggen, Erik; Rillig, Matthias C.; Hempel, Stefan

doi:10.1038/ISMEJ.2014.72

Title

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities are phylogenetically clustered at small scales

Author

Horn, Sebastian

Caruso, Tancredi

Verbruggen, Erik

Rillig, Matthias C.

Hempel, Stefan

Abstract

Next-generation sequencing technologies with markers covering the full Glomeromycota phylum were used to uncover phylogenetic community structure of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) associated with Festuca brevipila. The study system was a semi-arid grassland with high plant diversity and a steep environmental gradient in pH, C, N, P and soil water content. The AMF community in roots and rhizosphere soil were analyzed separately and consisted of 74 distinct operational taxonomic units (OTUs) in total. Community-level variance partitioning showed that the role of environmental factors in determining AM species composition was marginal when controlling for spatial autocorrelation at multiple scales. Instead, phylogenetic distance and spatial distance were major correlates of AMF communities: OTUs that were more closely related (and which therefore may have similar traits) were more likely to co-occur. This pattern was insensitive to phylogenetic sampling breadth. Given the minor effects of the environment, we propose that at small scales closely related AMF positively associate through biotic factors such as plant-AMF filtering and interactions within the soil biota.

Language

English

Source (journal)

The ISME journal : multidisciplinary journal of microbial ecology. - London

Publication

London : Nature publishing group , 2014

ISSN

1751-7362

DOI

10.1038/ISMEJ.2014.72

Volume/pages

8 (2014) , p. 2231-2242