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Ecological Intelligence / Subject

mycorrhizae

Peer-reviewed Asia

Plants and mycorrhizal fungi responded differently to rainfall change—but their spatial variability converged under drought

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Inner Mongolia, China
System
Temperate grassland

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A field experiment compared ambient precipitation with 50% reductions and increases. Plant and arbuscular-mycorrhizal-fungal diversity responded differently, but their spatial compositional variability converged under reduced precipitation; AMF variation was driven primarily by abiotic soil filtering.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Aboveground and belowground diversity do not have to move together even when drought reorganizes both communities. That complicates attempts to infer soil symbiont response from vegetation monitoring alone.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The experiment represents one temperate-grassland system and a defined precipitation manipulation. Community-level sequencing and spatial-variability metrics do not directly establish changes in ecosystem function.

SOURCE

Journal of Plant Ecology — accepted precipitation experiment
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An Inner Mongolia precipitation experiment found plant and AMF diversity moving differently while reduced rainfall pushed both communities toward similar patterns of spatial compositional variability.

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Peer-reviewed

Forest carbon can recover on a similar trajectory while the ecosystem underneath takes a different path

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
China
System
Subalpine secondary and planted forests

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Researchers compared secondary and planted subalpine forests across a recovery chronosequence, separating total above-ground tree carbon into ectomycorrhizal (EcM) and arbuscular-mycorrhizal (AM) components and testing stand structure, functional composition and soil variables. Total tree carbon and EcM-associated carbon increased with recovery stage in both strategies, with no significant strategy-by-stage interaction for either; AM-associated carbon did show a significant interaction. Secondary forests were more strongly associated with mycorrhizal dominance and functional reassembly, while planted forests were more strongly associated with stand structure and soil conditions.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The useful result is the null as much as the difference: two restoration approaches can converge on a similar headline carbon trajectory while rebuilding different ecological machinery. Carbon stock alone can therefore hide differences in composition, structure and belowground relationships that may matter for durability and future function.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is a chronosequence and structural-equation analysis rather than a randomized restoration experiment, so inferred pathways remain observational. The findings concern above-ground tree carbon in one subalpine forest context and do not establish that secondary and planted forests are equivalent across biodiversity, soil carbon or long-term resilience.

SOURCE

Journal of Applied Ecology · Original evidence
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A subalpine forest chronosequence found similar total above-ground carbon recovery in secondary and planted forests, but the mycorrhizal, structural and soil pathways behind that recovery differed.

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Peer-reviewed Asia

Japan — Forest symbioses are shifting with warming and tree disease

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Japanese archipelago
System
Temperate forests and forest soils

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Across more than 13,000 forest plots, arbuscular-mycorrhizal tree dominance increased significantly over roughly 15 years and was associated with climate warming and tree diseases. Higher AM dominance was negatively related to the soil carbon-to-nitrogen stock ratio.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Forest change can reorganize belowground symbioses and nutrient cycling before those changes are obvious in simple canopy-cover metrics. Pest and disease dynamics may therefore alter biogeochemistry at broad scales.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The observational design establishes broad associations rather than proving a single causal pathway from warming or disease to symbiosis shifts. Soil consequences will vary with species composition and site conditions.

SOURCE

Nature Communications · Original evidence
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More than 13,000 plots show increasing dominance of arbuscular-mycorrhizal trees, with potential consequences for soil nitrogen retention.

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