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1. Negative effects of an allelopathic invader on AM fungal plant species drive community‐level responses

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3201  

   Roche, Morgan D. ; Pearse, Ian S. ; Bialic‐Murphy, Lalasia ; Kivlin, Stephanie N. ; Sofaer, Helen R. ; Kalisz, Susan ( January 2021 , Ecology)

   The mechanisms causing invasive species impact are rarely empirically tested, limiting our ability to understand and predict subsequent changes in invaded plant communities. Invader disruption of native mutualistic interactions is a mechanism expected to have negative effects on native plant species. Specifically, disruption of native plant‐fungal mutualisms may provide non‐mycorrhizal plant invaders an advantage over mycorrhizal native plants. InvasiveAlliaria petiolata(garlic mustard) produces secondary chemicals toxic to soil microorganisms including mycorrhizal fungi, and is known to induce physiological stress and reduce population growth rates of native forest understory plant species. Here, we report on a 11‐yr manipulative field experiment in replicated forest plots testing if the effects of removal of garlic mustard on the plant community support the mutualism disruption hypothesis within the entire understory herbaceous community. We compare community responses for two functional groups: the mycorrhizal vs. the non‐mycorrhizal plant communities. Our results show that garlic mustard weeding alters the community composition, decreases community evenness, and increases the abundance of understory herbs that associate with mycorrhizal fungi. Conversely, garlic mustard has no significant effects on the non‐mycorrhizal plant community. Consistent with the mutualism disruption hypothesis, our results demonstrate that allelochemical producing invaders modify the plant community by disproportionately impacting mycorrhizal plant species. We also demonstrate the importance of incorporating causal mechanisms of biological invasion to elucidate patterns and predict community‐level responses.

    

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2. Microbial community attributes supersede plant and soil parameters in predicting fungal necromass decomposition rates in a 12-tree species common garden experiment

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2023.109124  

   Maillard, François ; Beatty, Briana ; Park, Maria ; Adamczyk, Sylwia ; Adamczyk, Bartosz ; See, Craig R. ; Cavender-Bares, Jeannine ; Hobbie, Sarah E. ; Kennedy, Peter G. ( September 2023 , Soil Biology and Biochemistry)
3. Plant invasion impacts on fungal community structure and function depend on soil warming and nitrogen enrichment

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04797-4  

   Anthony, M. A. ; Stinson, K. A. ; Moore, J. A. ; Frey, S. D. ( December 2020 , Oecologia)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract The impacts of invasive species on biodiversity may be mitigated or exacerbated by abiotic environmental changes. Invasive plants can restructure soil fungal communities with important implications for native biodiversity and nutrient cycling, yet fungal responses to invasion may depend on numerous anthropogenic stressors. In this study, we experimentally invaded a long-term soil warming and simulated nitrogen deposition experiment with the widespread invasive plant Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard) and tested the responses of soil fungal communities to invasion, abiotic factors, and their interaction. We focused on the phytotoxic garlic mustard because it suppresses native mycorrhizae across forests of North America. We found that invasion in combination with warming, but not under ambient conditions or elevated nitrogen, significantly reduced soil fungal biomass and ectomycorrhizal relative abundances and increased relative abundances of general soil saprotrophs and fungal genes encoding for hydrolytic enzymes. These results suggest that warming potentially exacerbates fungal responses to plant invasion. Soils collected from uninvaded and invaded plots across eight forests spanning a 4 °C temperature gradient further demonstrated that the magnitude of fungal responses to invasion was positively correlated with mean annual temperature. Our study is one of the first empirical tests to show that the impacts of invasion on fungal communities depends on additional anthropogenic pressures and were greater in concert with warming than under elevated nitrogen or ambient conditions. 

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4. Common garden experiments disentangle plant genetic and environmental contributions to ectomycorrhizal fungal community structure

   https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.15352  

   Patterson, Adair ; Flores-Rentería, Lluvia ; Whipple, Amy ; Whitham, Thomas ; Gehring, Catherine ( July 2018 , New Phytologist)
5. Fungal community dissimilarity predicts plant–soil feedback strength in a lowland tropical forest

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4200  

   Delavaux, Camille S. ; Angst, Janika K. ; Espinosa, Hilario ; Brown, Makenna ; Petticord, Daniel F. ; Schroeder, John W. ; Broders, Kirk ; Herre, Edward A. ; Bever, James D. ; Crowther, Thomas W. ( November 2023 , Ecology)

   Soil microbes impact plant community structure and diversity through plant–soil feedbacks. However, linking the relative abundance of plant pathogens and mutualists to differential plant recruitment remains challenging. Here, we tested for microbial mediation of pairwise feedback using a reciprocal transplant experiment in a lowland tropical forest in Panama paired with amplicon sequencing of soil and roots. We found evidence that plant species identity alters the microbial community, and these changes in microbial composition alter subsequent growth and survival of conspecific plants. We also found that greater community dissimilarity between species in their arbuscular mycorrhizal and nonpathogenic fungi predicted increased positive feedback. Finally, we identified specific microbial taxa across our target functional groups that differentially accumulated under conspecific settings. Collectively, these findings clarify how soil pathogens and mutualists mediate net feedback effects on plant recruitment, with implications for management and restoration.

    

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