Ectomycorrhizal symbiosis can enhance plant nutrition through improved access to discrete organic nutrient patches of high resource quality.

ABSTRACT: It is known that roots can respond to patches of fertility; however, root proliferation is often too slow to exploit resources fully, and organic nutrient patches may be broken down and leached, immobilized or chemically fixed before they are invaded by the root system. The ability of fungal hyphae to exploit resource patches is far greater than that of roots due to their innate physiological and morphological plasticity, which allows comprehensive exploration and rapid colonization of resource patches in soils. The fungal symbionts of ectomycorrhizal plants excrete significant quantities of enzymes such as chitinases, phosphatases and proteases. These might allow the organic residue to be tapped directly for nutrients such as N and P. Pot experiments conducted with nutrient-stressed ectom

SUBMITTER: Tibbett M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4233838 | biostudies-literature | 2002 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature