Soil fungi as link between plant derived carbon and soil food webs (FunLink)

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This subproject investigates the role fungi play in transferring plant-derived carbon to microbial and consumer organisms in agricultural soils. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) colonizing roots and soils represent the mycorrhizal (symbiotic) channel. The saprotrophic (saprobic) channel is formed by soil fungi attacking complex carbon polymers of the plant litter. In the first phase we detected fungi of both channels with wide distribution, which may act as horizontal C-transfer pipelines between soil compartments. We also found compartment specific fungi, suggesting that a part of the C transfer in soils proceeds vertically through trophic chains. The new phase aims at precising the respective importance of the horizontal and vertical C-transfer routes and, within the vertical one, to consider the involvement of intramicrobial loops. One goal is also to better separate the respective trajectories of the plant derived C delivered to soils by living and by dead plant materials. The project will again combine field and microcosm experiments, use molecular tools such as next generation sequencing and target both RNA and DNA templates to increase the resolution of the active fungal biota. We will contribute to implement common experimental model systems using 13C labelled fungal strains with different life forms to better depict the fungal C trajectory through soil trophic chains. Most strongly this SP is connected to SP MicLink, SP NemWeb and SP FaunWeb.