Native fungal endophytes suppress an exotic dominant and increase plant diversity over small and large spatial scales
Native fungal endophytes suppress an exotic dominant and increase plant diversity over small and large spatial scales
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DOI：
10.1890/15-1166.1
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发表时间：
2016-05-01
期刊：
影响因子：
4.8
通讯作者：
Strauss, Sharon Y.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Afkhami, Michelle E.;Strauss, Sharon Y.
了解群落动态和过程，如产生和维持生物多样性、驱动演替和影响入侵易感性的因素，是生态学和进化的中心目标。虽然大多数关于物种相互作用如何影响群落的研究都集中在高度可见的宏观生物上，但我们表明，共生的微真菌内生菌在其宿主植物的范围内具有群落水平的效应，并提供了真菌内生菌增强植物多样性的第一个例子。在一项为期三年的野外研究中，我们通过实验控制加州原生草的内生菌丰度，结果表明，尽管它们的生物量很小，但内生菌通过抑制优势入侵草，显著增加了植物群落多样性（与内生菌相比增加了110%）。这种影响也可以检测到，但较小，在五个额外的普通花园中，跨越生态多样化的栖息地，不同的气候，大约400公里的宿主草范围以及花园内的微空间尺度。我们的研究表明，共生微生物虽然通常是隐藏的玩家，但可以在广泛的栖息地和规模上产生意想不到的大生态影响，并且可能对促进多样化的社区和生态系统很重要。
Understanding community dynamics and processes, such as the factors that generate and maintain biodiversity, drive succession, and affect invasion susceptibility, is a central goal in ecology and evolution. While most studies of how species interactions affect communities have focused on highly visible macroorganisms, we show that mutualistic microfungal endophytes have community-level effects across their host plant's range and provide the first example of fungal endophytes enhancing plant diversity. A three-year field study in which we experimentally manipulated endophyte abundance in a native Californian grass showed that despite their minute biomass, endophytes dramatically increased plant community diversity (similar to 110% greater increase with endophytes) by suppressing a dominant invasive grass, Bromus diandrus. This effect was also detectable, but smaller, across five additional common gardens spanning ecologically diverse habitats, different climates, and >400 km of the host grass' range as well as at microspatial scales within gardens. Our study illustrates that mutualistic microbes, while often hidden players, can have unexpectedly large ecological impacts across a wide range of habitats and scales and may be important for promoting diverse communities and ecosystems.