Professor Ecosystem functioning Hasselt University Hasselt, Belgium
Mycorrhiza, a symbiotic relationship between plants and fungi, possessed by nearly all terrestrial plant species, represents an important, yet poorly understood dimension of plant functional diversity. Especially our understanding of spatial dynamics of mycorrhizal vegetation and mycorrhizal fungal abundance in roots is still in its infancy. This information is key for better quantification of mycorrhizal impacts on ecosystem processes and for incorporating mycorrhizal pathways into global biogeochemical models. I will present the first high-resolution maps of fine root stocks colonized by arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) and ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungi, and the first analysis of carbon amount stored in fungi of mycorrhizal plnats. The maps were assembled by combining multiple open-source databases holding information about root biomass carbon, the proportions of biomass of AM and EcM plants of different life forms within ecosystems, plot-level relative abundance of plant species and intensity of AM and EcM root colonization. Root-associated AM and EcM abundance was calculated in 881 spatial units, defined as the combination of ecoregions and land cover types across six continents. The highest AM abundances are observed in the (sub-)tropics, while the highest EcM abundances occur in the taiga regions. The new maps will serve as a basis for future research aimed to understand spatial and eco-evolutionary dynamics of mycorrhizas and their role in functioning of terrestrial ecosystems.
