Networks of power and influence: the role of mycorrhizal mycelium in controlling plant communities and agroecosystem functioning
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A frame that forgets how it found something cannot be audited. These are the routes that admitted this work.
No Canadian affiliation. An affiliation-only frame — the usual design — would never have seen this work. It is one of the works that make the case for inverting the frame.
Abstract
Extraradical mycelia of mycorrhizal fungi are normally the hidden half of the symbiosis, but they are powerful underground influences upon biogeochemical cycling, the composition of plant communities, and agroecosystem functioning. Mycorrhizal mycelial networks are the most dynamic and functionally diverse components of the symbiosis, and recent estimates suggest they are empowered by receiving as much as 10% or more of the net photosynthate of their host plants. They often constitute 20%30% of total soil microbial biomass yet are undetected by standard measures of biomass used by soil scientists and agromomists. Mycorrhizal mycelia provide extensive pathways for carbon and nutrient fluxes through soil, often exceeding tens of metres per gram of soil. We consider the amounts of photosynthate power allocated to these mycelial networks and how this is used in fungal respiration, biomass, and growth and in influencing soil, plant, and ecosystem processes. The costs and functional benefits to plants linking to these networks are fungal specific and, because of variations in physiology and host specificity, are not shared equally; some plants even depend exclusively on these networks for carbon. We briefly assess the potential contribution of extraradical mycorrhizal mycelium to sustainable agriculture and maintenance of biodiversity and highlight technologies that promise new vistas and improved fine-scale resolution of the dynamic spatial and temporal functioning of these networks in soil.Key words: arbuscular mycorrhiza, ectomycorrhiza, extraradical mycelium, hyphal networks.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
The record
- Venue
- Canadian Journal of Botany
- Topic
- Mycorrhizal Fungi and Plant Interactions
- Field
- Agricultural and Biological Sciences
- Canadian institutions
- —
- Funders
- —
- Keywords
- MyceliumAgroecosystemBiologyMycorrhizaBiomass (ecology)SymbiosisEctomycorrhizaEcosystemArbuscular mycorrhizaAgronomyNutrient cycleHyphaBiodiversityBiogeochemical cycleEcologyEnvironmental scienceBotanyAgriculture
- Has abstract in OpenAlex
- yes