THE MUTUALISM–PARASITISM CONTINUUM IN ECTOMYCORRHIZAS: A QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT USING META-ANALYSIS
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Context dependency is deemed to position the outcomes of species interactions along a continuum of mutualism to parasitism. Thus, it is imperative to understand which factors determine where a particular interspecific interaction falls along the continuum. Over the past 20 years research on the ectomycorrhizal symbiosis has resulted in sufficient independent studies to now generalize about the factors and mechanisms that affect host response to ectomycorrhizas. Using meta-analysis we quantitatively evaluated the role of biotic (partner identity and colonization levels of ectomycorrhizal fungi) and abiotic (phosphorus levels) factors in determining host biomass, height, and shoot:root responses to ectomycorrhizal associations. On average, seedlings across multiple host genera increased in total biomass when inoculated with ectomycorrhizal fungi regardless of the identity of the fungal associate; host genera differed in the magnitude of response for both total biomass and shoot:root ratio. Association with different fungal genera modified only host allocation of biomass to shoots and roots. Neither level of colonization on inoculated seedlings nor the level of contamination on control seedlings relative to colonization levels by target fungi on inoculated seedlings was important in explaining variation in effect sizes for any growth response. None of our proposed factors (identity of partners, colonization level, magnitude of contamination, or duration of association) explained variation in effect sizes for shoot height, although in general seedlings were taller when inoculated with ectomycorrhizal fungi. Phosphorus additions did not influence effect sizes. Although the general trend across studies was for a positive response of hosts to ectomycorrhizal inoculation, publication bias and methodological issues effectively reduce and distort the spectrum on which we evaluate host responses to ectomycorrhizal inoculation. Our results indicate that the variation in ectomycorrhizal fungi perceived by the host may be of a discrete (presence/absence of ectomycorrhizal fungi) rather than continuous nature (variation in identity or abundance of ectomycorrhizal fungi).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.029 | 0.036 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.007 | 0.024 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.009 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".