Tree progress response to soil vitamins and neighborhood crowding varies between mycorrhizal sorts

Tree progress is a crucial a part of forest dynamics, the symbiosis between timber and mycorrhizal fungi (e.g., arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM), ectomycorrhizal (EM) and dual-mycorrhizal (AEM)) can enhance species means to soak up vitamins and adapt to the native surroundings, which in the end ends in the distinction of species response to biotic and abiotic components. However, it stays unclear how species with totally different mycorrhizal associations exhibit progress responses to native abiotic and biotic gradients.

In view of this, Prof. Hao Zhanqing and Dr. Ren Jing from the Institute of Applied Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in cooperation with Prof. Claire Fortunel from the Institute de Recherche pour le Développement, used a steady 10-year tree growth knowledge recording by the dendrometer band of 25 tree species in Changbaishan Forest Dynamics Plot to discover variations in tree progress response to soil vitamins and neighborhood crowding between tree species associating with AM, EM, and AEM fungi.

They discovered that soil vitamins decreased AM tree progress, whereas competitors diminished each AM and EM tree progress, and neither soil nor competitors impacted AEM tree progress.

Although individual-level traits (e.g., leaf space) have been stronger predictors of tree progress than species-level traits throughout mycorrhizal sorts, most traits can hardly seize variations in tree progress response to soil vitamins and competitors.

These findings spotlight the significance of integrating data on tree mycorrhizal associations and individual-level traits to enhance our understanding of the drivers of tree progress and forest dynamics.

The analysis was printed in Oecologia.