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