Abstract
Highly diverse microbial assemblages colonize plant roots. It is still poorly understood whether different members of this root microbiome act synergistically by supplying different services (for example, different limiting nutrients) to plants and plant communities. In order to test this, we manipulated the presence of two widespread plant root symbionts, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and nitrogen-fixing rhizobia bacteria in model grassland communities established in axenic microcosms. Here, we demonstrate that both symbionts complement each other resulting in increased plant diversity, enhanced seedling recruitment and improved nutrient acquisition compared with a single symbiont situation. Legume seedlings obtained up to 15-fold higher productivity if they formed an association with both symbionts, opposed to productivity they reached with only one symbiont. Our results reveal the importance of functional diversity of symbionts and demonstrate that different members of the root microbiome can complement each other in acquiring different limiting nutrients and in driving important ecosystem functions.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Richard Bardgett, Franz Bender, Wim van der Putten, Martin Stenflo, Herman Verhoef and Cameron Wagg for helpful comments that improved this manuscript. We are also grateful to Flip de Kriek and Fred Wolff for their technical support. This work was supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO-Vernieuwingsimpuls; grant number 016.001.023), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF- Prodoc grant number 137136) and the Swiss Federal Government.
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van der Heijden, M., Bruin, S., Luckerhoff, L. et al. A widespread plant-fungal-bacterial symbiosis promotes plant biodiversity, plant nutrition and seedling recruitment. ISME J 10, 389–399 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2015.120
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2015.120
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