What are mycorrhizal traits?

V. Bala Chaudhary; E. Penelope Holland; Suw Charman-Anderson; Aidee Guzman; Lukas Bell-Dereske; Tanya E. Cheeke; Adriana Corrales; Jessica Duchicela; Cameron Egan; Manju M. Gupta; S. Emilia Hannula; Rachel Hestrin; Shabana Hoosein; Amit Kumar; Genet Mhretu; Lena Neuenkamp; Pushpa Soti; Yichun Xie; Thorunn Helgason

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2022.04.003

What are mycorrhizal traits?

V. Bala Chaudhary^*, E. Penelope Holland, Suw Charman-Anderson, Aidee Guzman, Lukas Bell-Dereske, Tanya E. Cheeke, Adriana Corrales, Jessica Duchicela, Cameron Egan, Manju M. Gupta, S. Emilia Hannula, Rachel Hestrin, Shabana Hoosein, Amit Kumar, Genet Mhretu, Lena Neuenkamp, Pushpa Soti, Yichun Xie, Thorunn Helgason

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Biological Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

Abstract / Description of output

Traits are inherent properties of organisms, but how are they defined for organismal networks such as mycorrhizal symbioses? Mycorrhizal symbioses are complex and diverse belowground symbioses between plants and fungi that have proved challenging to fit into a unified and coherent trait framework. We propose an inclusive mycorrhizal trait framework that classifies traits as morphological, physiological, and phenological features that have functional implications for the symbiosis. We further classify mycorrhizal traits by location – plant, fungus, or the symbiosis – which highlights new questions in trait-based mycorrhizal ecology designed to charge and challenge the scientific community. This new framework is an opportunity for researchers to interrogate their data to identify novel insights and gaps in our understanding of mycorrhizal symbioses.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	573-581
Number of pages	9
Journal	Trends in Ecology and Evolution
Volume	37
Issue number	7
Early online date	1 May 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2022.04.003
Publication status	Published - 1 Jul 2022

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

community ecology
ecosystem function
fungal traits
mycorrhizas
plant traits
symbiosis

Access to Document

10.1016/j.tree.2022.04.003

Cite this

Chaudhary, V. B., Holland, E. P., Charman-Anderson, S., Guzman, A., Bell-Dereske, L., Cheeke, T. E., Corrales, A., Duchicela, J., Egan, C., Gupta, M. M., Hannula, S. E., Hestrin, R., Hoosein, S., Kumar, A., Mhretu, G., Neuenkamp, L., Soti, P., Xie, Y., & Helgason, T. (2022). What are mycorrhizal traits? Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 37(7), 573-581. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2022.04.003

@article{5436935a9852428096a31c6ad4aa4eac,

title = "What are mycorrhizal traits?",

abstract = "Traits are inherent properties of organisms, but how are they defined for organismal networks such as mycorrhizal symbioses? Mycorrhizal symbioses are complex and diverse belowground symbioses between plants and fungi that have proved challenging to fit into a unified and coherent trait framework. We propose an inclusive mycorrhizal trait framework that classifies traits as morphological, physiological, and phenological features that have functional implications for the symbiosis. We further classify mycorrhizal traits by location – plant, fungus, or the symbiosis – which highlights new questions in trait-based mycorrhizal ecology designed to charge and challenge the scientific community. This new framework is an opportunity for researchers to interrogate their data to identify novel insights and gaps in our understanding of mycorrhizal symbioses.",

keywords = "community ecology, ecosystem function, fungal traits, mycorrhizas, plant traits, symbiosis",

author = "Chaudhary, {V. Bala} and Holland, {E. Penelope} and Suw Charman-Anderson and Aidee Guzman and Lukas Bell-Dereske and Cheeke, {Tanya E.} and Adriana Corrales and Jessica Duchicela and Cameron Egan and Gupta, {Manju M.} and Hannula, {S. Emilia} and Rachel Hestrin and Shabana Hoosein and Amit Kumar and Genet Mhretu and Lena Neuenkamp and Pushpa Soti and Yichun Xie and Thorunn Helgason",

note = "Funding Information: Concepts for this paper were conceived during iCOMET, a workshop and international Collaboration on Mycorrhizal Ecological Traits held virtually in March 2020. The authors are grateful to Linh Anh Cat and Natasa Sibanc for contributing to initial discussions, and to Alastair Fitter for providing helpful comments on the manuscript. We thank Pierre-Luc Chagnon, Guillermo Bueno, and two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments that greatly improved the manuscript. We also appreciate and recognize research that could not be included in this paper due to space limitations. The iCOMET workshop was supported by the Natural Environmental Research Council (grant number NE/S008543/1). V.B.C. is supported by the National Science Foundation (award DEB-1844531). L.N. was supported by the Marie Sk{\l}odowska Curie Individual Fellowship (MYFUN, Grant agreement ID: 835472). No interests are declared. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 Elsevier Ltd",

year = "2022",

month = jul,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1016/j.tree.2022.04.003",

language = "English",

volume = "37",

pages = "573--581",

journal = "Trends in Ecology and Evolution",

issn = "0169-5347",

publisher = "Elsevier Science",