PARENT SESSION
Poster Session 30: Soil Ecology.
Wednesday, August 4 Presentations from 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, Exhibit Hall A 1.
Spatiotemporal patterns of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal diversity.
Klironomos, John1, Wolfe, Benjamin*,1, Haydon, Daniel1, 1 University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
ABSTRACT- Experimental manipulations of the diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) have shown that changes in AMF diversity can influence plant diversity and productivity within ecosystems. Variability in the composition of these belowground communities over space and time could have important implications for the structure and function of aboveground communities. However, the spatial and temporal variation in AMF communities within natural ecosystems is largely unknown. In this study, we describe the spatial and temporal patterns of species composition of an AMF community in an intensively sampled (2,500 sampling points) 50 m2 portion of an old-field community located in Southern Ontario, Canada. Non-random spatial patterns were observed for individual AMF species as well as for total AMF species richness. These spatial patterns were consistent over the two-year sampling period for most AMF species. Total AMF species richness at a given point within the sampling area ranged from 0 to 11 species, indicating the potential for high spatial variability in the composition and subsequent functional potential of the AMF community. Relating these spatial distributions of AMF to their associated aboveground plant communities will better develop our understanding of the spatial template of AMF-plant interactions in the field.
Key words: diversity, mycorrhizal fungi, spatial heterogeneity