Plant-mycorrhizal fungal interaction networks: understanding their role in the resilience and adaptation of forests to climate change

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Enhancing regeneration of forests that are productive and resilient to perturbations will be a crucial strategy in Canada’s efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Resilient forests are characterized by above and belowground species diversity, healthy biotic and abiotic interactions, and connectivity, thus enabling them to resist damage and recover quickly from disturbance. However, ecological theory that aboveground competition is the dominant mechanism driving resource uptake, species coexistence, productivity and other forest ecological processes, is hindering the development of novel applications for increasing the resilience and adaptive capacity of regenerating forests. Lacking is an understanding of how facilitation by mutualists, in particular mycorrhizal fungi and the belowground networks they form among trees, influences tree behaviour and consequences for forest ecosystems. The underlying premise of this research is that resilience and adaptive capacity of forests is rooted in the balance of positive and negative above- and belowground interactions among species. Within this framework, I will focus on (i) outcomes, (ii) mechanisms and (iii) drivers of these interactions in forest ecosystems.