Soilborne fungi have host affinity and host-specific effects on seed germination and survival in a lowland tropical forest
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Author
Sarmiento, CarolinaZalamea, Paul-Camilo
Dalling, James W.
Davis, Adam S.
Stump, Simon M.
U’Ren, Jana M.
Arnold, A. Elizabeth
Affiliation
Univ Arizona, Dept Ecol & Evolutionary BiolUniv Arizona, Dept Agr & Biosyst Engn
Univ Arizona, Sch Plant Sci
Issue Date
2017-10-24
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NATL ACAD SCIENCESCitation
Sarmiento, C., Zalamea, P. C., Dalling, J. W., Davis, A. S., Stump, S. M., U’Ren, J. M., & Arnold, A. E. (2017). Soilborne fungi have host affinity and host-specific effects on seed germination and survival in a lowland tropical forest. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(43), 11458-11463.Rights
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This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
The Janzen-Connell (JC) hypothesis provides a conceptual framework for explaining the maintenance of tree diversity in tropical forests. Its central tenet-that recruits experience high mortality near conspecifics and at high densities-assumes a degree of host specialization in interactions between plants and natural enemies. Studies confirming JC effects have focused primarily on spatial distributions of seedlings and saplings, leaving major knowledge gaps regarding the fate of seeds in soil and the specificity of the soilborne fungi that are their most important antagonists. Here we use a common garden experiment in a lowland tropical forest in Panama to show that communities of seed-infecting fungi are structured predominantly by plant species, with only minor influences of factors such as local soil type, forest characteristics, or time in soil (1-12 months). Inoculation experiments confirmed that fungi affected seed viability and germination in a host-specific manner and that effects on seed viability preceded seedling emergence. Seeds are critical components of reproduction for tropical trees, and the factors influencing their persistence, survival, and germination shape the populations of seedlings and saplings on which current perspectives regarding forest dynamics are based. Together these findings bring seed dynamics to light in the context of the JC hypothesis, implicating them directly in the processes that have emerged as critical for diversity maintenance in species-rich tropical forests.Note
No copyright information listed.ISSN
0027-84241091-6490
PubMed ID
28973927Version
Final accepted manuscriptSponsors
NSF [DEB-1120205, DEB-1119758]; College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at The University of Arizona; Simons Foundation [429440]Additional Links
http://www.pnas.org/lookup/doi/10.1073/pnas.1706324114ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1073/pnas.1706324114
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