Fungal-host diversity among mycoheterotrophic plants increases proportionally to their fungal-host overlap.

ABSTRACT: The vast majority of plants obtain an important proportion of vital resources from soil through mycorrhizal fungi. Generally, this happens in exchange of photosynthetically fixed carbon, but occasionally the interaction is mycoheterotrophic, and plants obtain carbon from mycorrhizal fungi. This process results in an antagonistic interaction between mycoheterotrophic plants and their fungal hosts. Importantly, the fungal-host diversity available for plants is restricted as mycoheterotrophic interactions often involve narrow lineages of fungal hosts. Unfortunately, little is known whether fungal-host diversity may be additionally modulated by plant-plant interactions through shared hosts. Yet, this may have important implications for plant competition and coexistence. Here, we use DNA sequen

SUBMITTER: Gomes SIF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5433980 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature