Endophytic benefit for a competitive host is neutralized by increasing ratios of infected plants

Abstract

Leaf endophytes such as Epichloë can affect the competitive ability of host grasses, but the reported responses are inconsistent. We hypothesized that this inconsistency is caused, at least in part, by the following two aspects. One is that a competitive advantage might occur as a result of an increase in storage compounds for both growth and defense. Another is that the effect of the endophyte might be related to both water availability and host density. In a greenhouse experiment, we compared the competitive abilities of endophyte-infected (EI) and endophyte-free (EF) Leymus chinensis, a dominant grass native to the Inner Mongolia Steppe of China, subjected to ten treatments comprised of a factorial combination of two levels of water availability (well-watered and drought) and five proportions of EI to EF plants (12:0, 4:8, 6:6, 8:4, 0:12). The results showed that the competitive ability of EI plants was higher than that of EF under drought. Here, greater belowground biomass and water use efficiency might contribute to better competitiveness of EI plants. When competing under well-watered conditions, endophyte infection did not provide a benefit to the host plant in biomass accumulation, but more carbon was allocated to defense (total phenolics) in EI plants. This scenario could help EI plants suffer less damage than EF when exposed to herbivores in natural habitats. The competitive ability of EI plants was regulated by EI:EF ratios. Competitive ability of EI plants was higher than that of EF plants in mixtures with lower numbers of EI plants, but the beneficial effect of endophyte infection was neutralized in mixtures with higher numbers of EI plants. Overall, endophyte infection improved the competitive ability of the host under either drought or well-watered conditions but in the presence of herbivore, only this benefit was neutralized by increasing ratios of EI plants. We suspect that both the conditional beneficial effects and stabilizing effects of density differences are likely to keep the endophyte infection rate of L. chinensis at an intermediate level.