Plant species distributions along environmental gradients: do belowground interactions with fungi matter?

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Version: Final published version
Serval ID
serval:BIB_A4BFB3D30FC4
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Plant species distributions along environmental gradients: do belowground interactions with fungi matter?
Journal
Frontiers In Plant Science
Author(s)
Pellissier L., Pinto-Figueroa E., Niculita-Hirzel Hélène, Moora M., Villard L., Goudet J., Guex N., Pagni M., Xenarios I., Sanders I., Guisan A.
ISSN
1664-462X (Electronic)
ISSN-L
1664-462X
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2013
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
4
Number
500
Pages
500
Language
english
Abstract
The distribution of plants along environmental gradients is constrained by abiotic and biotic factors. Cumulative evidence attests of the impact of biotic factors on plant distributions, but only few studies discuss the role of belowground communities. Soil fungi, in particular, are thought to play an important role in how plant species assemble locally into communities. We first review existing evidence, and then test the effect of the number of soil fungal operational taxonomic units (OTUs) on plant species distributions using a recently collected dataset of plant and metagenomic information on soil fungi in the Western Swiss Alps. Using species distribution models (SDMs), we investigated whether the distribution of individual plant species is correlated to the number of OTUs of two important soil fungal classes known to interact with plants: the Glomeromycetes, that are obligatory symbionts of plants, and the Agaricomycetes, that may be facultative plant symbionts, pathogens, or wood decayers. We show that including the fungal richness information in the models of plant species distributions improves predictive accuracy. Number of fungal OTUs is especially correlated to the distribution of high elevation plant species. We suggest that high elevation soil show greater variation in fungal assemblages that may in turn impact plant turnover among communities. We finally discuss how to move beyond correlative analyses, through the design of field experiments manipulating plant and fungal communities along environmental gradients.
Keywords
fungal communities, plant assemblage, elevation, 454 pyrosequencing , species distribution models
Pubmed
Web of science
Open Access
Yes
Create date
26/11/2013 22:44
Last modification date
20/08/2019 15:10
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