Plant life span and response to inoculation with vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi

✍ Scribed by Ralph E. J. Boerner

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 600 KB
• Volume: 1
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0940-6360
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00203291

✦ Synopsis

This study sought to investigate the relationships among residual soil phosphorus (P) pools, plant life span, successional persistence and responsiveness to vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal (VAM) infection. Plants of five species which varied in life span, persistence, and VAM responsiveness were grown in nutrientpoor soils in a glasshouse for 8 weeks and given weekly feedings with either high-or low-P solutions. There was little effect of plant life span or VAM status on changes in residual available (1 M KC1 extractable) P. In contrast, there were strong correlations between VAM responsiveness and changes in the exchangeable P pool (1 M NH4C2H302 extractable). Plants with greater VAM responsiveness and greater persistence through succession were able to reduce this potentially available P pool by as much as 50~ in 8 weeks. In contrast, plants with poor or negative responsiveness to mycorrhizal infection and little successional persistence exhibited little control over potentially available P pools. These data confirm other studies which demonstrate that VA mycorrhizae access insoluble forms of P, thereby controlling potential supply rate over the longer term. Such control over soil P pools may contribute to successional persistence via either inhibition or tolerance mechanisms, and should be considered in any comprehensive theory of the mechanisms underlying succession.