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The composition of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities in the roots of a ruderal forb is not related to the forest fragmentation process
Author(s) -
Grilli Gabriel,
Urcelay Carlos,
Galetto Leonardo,
Davison John,
Vasar Martti,
Saks Ülle,
Jairus Teele,
Öpik Maarja
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
environmental microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.954
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1462-2920
pISSN - 1462-2912
DOI - 10.1111/1462-2920.12623
Subject(s) - biology , ruderal species , glomeromycota , ecology , fragmentation (computing) , biodiversity , biological dispersal , plant community , nestedness , community structure , habitat , forb , botany , grassland , ecological succession , arbuscular mycorrhizal , symbiosis , population , genetics , demography , sociology , bacteria
Summary Land‐use changes and forest fragmentation have strong impact on biodiversity. However, little is known about the influence of new landscape configurations on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal ( AMF ) community composition. We used 454 pyrosequencing to assess AMF diversity in plant roots from a fragmented forest. We detected 59 virtual taxa ( VT ; phylogenetically defined operational taxonomic units) of AMF – including 10 new VT – in the roots of E uphorbia acerensis . AMF communities were mainly composed of members of family G lomeraceae and were similar throughout the fragmented landscape, despite variation in forest fragment size (i.e. small, medium and large) and isolation (i.e. varying pairwise distances). AMF communities in forest fragments were phylogenetically clustered compared with the global, but not regional and local AMF taxon pools. This indicates that non‐random community assembly processes possibly related to dispersal limitation at a large scale, rather than habitat filtering or biotic interactions, may be important in structuring the AMF communities. In this system, forest fragmentation did not appear to influence AMF community composition in the roots of the ruderal plant. Whether this is true for AMF communities in soil and the roots of other ecological groups of host plants or in other habitats deserves further study.