A widespread plant-fungal-bacterial symbiosis promotes plant biodiversity, plant nutrition and seedling recruitment.

ABSTRACT: Highly diverse microbial assemblages colonize plant roots. It is still poorly understood whether different members of this root microbiome act synergistically by supplying different services (for example, different limiting nutrients) to plants and plant communities. In order to test this, we manipulated the presence of two widespread plant root symbionts, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and nitrogen-fixing rhizobia bacteria in model grassland communities established in axenic microcosms. Here, we demonstrate that both symbionts complement each other resulting in increased plant diversity, enhanced seedling recruitment and improved nutrient acquisition compared with a single symbiont situation. Legume seedlings obtained up to 15-fold higher productivity if they formed an association with both

SUBMITTER: van der Heijden MG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4737930 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature