TY - JOUR

T1 - Angiosperm symbioses with non-mycorrhizal fungal partners enhance N acquisition from ancient organic matter in a warming maritime Antarctic

AU - Hill, Paul

AU - Broughton, Richard

AU - Bougoure, Jeremy

AU - Havelange, William

AU - Newsham, Kevin K.

AU - Gran, Helen

AU - Murphy, Daniel V.

AU - Clode, Peta

AU - Ramayah, Soshila

AU - Marsden, Karina

AU - Quilliam, Richard

AU - Roberts, Paula

AU - Brown, Caley

AU - Read, David J.

AU - DeLuca, Thomas

AU - Bardgett, Richard D.

AU - Hopkins, David W.

AU - Jones, Davey L.

N1 - © 2019 The Authors. Ecology Letters published by CNRS and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

PY - 2019/12

Y1 - 2019/12

N2 - In contrast to the situation in plants inhabiting most of the world’s ecosystems, mycorrhizal fungi are usually absent from roots of the only two native vascular plant species of maritime Antarctica, Deschampsia antarctica and Colobanthus quitensis. Instead, a range of ascomycete fungi, termed dark septate endophytes (DSEs), frequently colonise the roots of these plant species. We demonstrate that colonisation of Antarctic vascular plants by DSEs facilitates not only the acquisition of organic nitrogen as early protein breakdown products, but also as non‐proteinaceous d‐amino acids and their short peptides, accumulated in slowly‐decomposing organic matter, such as moss peat. Our findings suggest that, in a warming maritime Antarctic, this symbiosis has a key role in accelerating the replacement of formerly dominant moss communities by vascular plants, and in increasing the rate at which ancient carbon stores laid down as moss peat over centuries or millennia are returned to the atmosphere as CO2.

AB - In contrast to the situation in plants inhabiting most of the world’s ecosystems, mycorrhizal fungi are usually absent from roots of the only two native vascular plant species of maritime Antarctica, Deschampsia antarctica and Colobanthus quitensis. Instead, a range of ascomycete fungi, termed dark septate endophytes (DSEs), frequently colonise the roots of these plant species. We demonstrate that colonisation of Antarctic vascular plants by DSEs facilitates not only the acquisition of organic nitrogen as early protein breakdown products, but also as non‐proteinaceous d‐amino acids and their short peptides, accumulated in slowly‐decomposing organic matter, such as moss peat. Our findings suggest that, in a warming maritime Antarctic, this symbiosis has a key role in accelerating the replacement of formerly dominant moss communities by vascular plants, and in increasing the rate at which ancient carbon stores laid down as moss peat over centuries or millennia are returned to the atmosphere as CO2.

KW - carbon cycle

KW - climate change

KW - dark septate endophytes

KW - enantiomers

KW - nitrogen cycle

KW - polar

KW - soil

UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1111%2Fele.13399&file=ele13399-sup-0001-Supinfo.pdf

U2 - 10.1111/ele.13399

DO - 10.1111/ele.13399

M3 - Article

C2 - 31621153

VL - 22

SP - 2111

EP - 2119

JO - Ecology Letters

JF - Ecology Letters

SN - 1461-0248

IS - 12

ER -