Trees, Mycorrhiza and Minerals –Field Relevance of in vitro Experiments

Abstract

Ectomycorrhizal fungi are mutualistic symbionts of boreal forest trees and may mediate mineral weathering through their direct access to photosyntentically derived carbon. In soil, fungal mycelia (i) provide a large surface for nutrient uptake; (ii) induce intense colonization of nutrient rich substrates; (iii) cause local acidification and (iv) produce organic acids. Mechanisms of ectomyorrhizal fungi induced weathering in response to nutrient limiting growth conditions remains largely unresolved. This review summarizes how current knowledge on fungal weathering is affected by experimental setup and conditions, i.e., pure or symbiotic growth, nitrogen source, the mean of detecting weathering activity and species examined.

Keywords:

• carbon
• ectomycorrhiza
• fungi
• mineral
• weathering

I thank Dr Anders Dahlberg, Dr Petra Fransson and Dr Shahid Mahmood at (SLU, Sweden) and Dr Anna A Gorbushina (University of Oldenburg, Germany and University of Geneva, Switzerland). Funding for this work was obtained from FORMAS.

Notes

† indicate that statistically significant results are obtained from the experiment.