Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities show low resistance and high resilience to wildfire disturbance
2015
Xiang, Xingjia | Gibbons, Sean M. | Yang, Jian | Kong, Jianjian | Sun, Ruibo | Chu, Haiyan
AIMS: Wildfires are important disturbances that help to shape the structure and function of forest ecosystems, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are key players in the post-fire recovery of soils and understory vegetation. We aimed to investigate the response of AMF communities to wildfire over different timescales. METHODS: Primer set AMV4.5NF/AMDGR was used to amplify soil 18S rRNA gene fragments for the 454 GS-FLX pyrosequencing platform to examine belowground AMF communities 1 and 11 years following low- and high-intensity wildfires in the Greater Khingan Mountains of China. RESULTS: The majority of AMF sequences detected were annotated as Glomeraceae, Claroideoglomeraceae, Diversisporaceae and Acaulosporaceae. Both AMF community composition and alpha-diversity were correlated with herbaceous and shrubby biomass, available phosphorus (AP) and NH₄ ⁺, which were in turn altered by wildfire. AMF community composition, alpha-diversity, and phylogenetic structure were significantly altered 1-year-post-fire. However, AMF communities were indistinguishable from unburned forest soils 11-year-post-fire. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicated that AMF communities are resilient to wildfire on decadal timescales. This resilience appears to depend on the post-fire regrowth of understory vegetation and the subsequent recovery of soil chemical properties.
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