The vast majority of plants form mycorrhizal ("fungus-root") partnerships, with this symbiotic state being ancestral for land plants. The effects of mycorrhizal fungi on plant growth and fitness (‘mycorrhizal phenotypes’) are diverse: these partnerships are not always beneficial, and sometimes strongly antagonistic. This inconsistency, combined with the poor quality of some commercial products and management recommendations that are poorly suited to existing agronomic practices, have led at least one Australian industry research funding body to put mycorrhizal fungi in the "too hard basket". Lessons can be learnt from ecological frameworks that can explain distributions, ecological strategies and effects on ecosystem processes based on the measurable attributes of organisms, or "traits". In this talk, I share examples of our research seeking to understand how mycorrhizal fungi are adapted along precipitation and soil fertility gradients in Australia, the consequences of these adaptations for those ecosystems and how the functional traits of both partners contribute to mycorrhizal phenotypes. The ultimate aim of our work is to define the conditions under which beneficial partnerships can be realised.
