‘Epidemiology’ of sheathing (ecto-) mycorrhizas in unsterile soils: a case study of Betula pendula

Abstract

SynopsisSequential observations were made of the effects on root development of inoculating Betula pendula seedlings during propagation with sheathing mycorrhizal fungi, Amanita muscaria, Hebeloma sacchariolens or Paxillus involutus. After propagation, the seedlings were grown for two seasons in four different soils (two mineral soils and two peats) which were not sterilised.While all inoculated seedlings had similar numbers of mycorrhizas at planting, numbers subsequently increased most rapidly with P. involutus and least rapidly with A. muscaria. From the end of the first season onwards, the uninoculated controls had as many mycorrhizas as seedlings inoculated with either A. muscaria or H. sacchariolens. These numbers were, however, usually exceeded on plants inoculated with P. involutus.The mycorrhizas developing on the controls, and on seedlings inoculated with A. muscaria, were attributable after planting into the unsterile soils, to naturally occurring soil-borne inocula of species of Cenococcum, Hebeloma, Inocybe, Laccaria, Paxillus and Thelephora etc. Those developing on seedlings inoculated with P. involutus were all attributable to this inoculant fungus in the first year but, in the second year, the proportions decreased to 19—14%. With H. sacchariolens, at least 90% of the mycorrhizas in the two mineral soils and one of the peats (a sedge peat) were attributable in years 1 and 2 to the inoculant fungus. In the other peat (Sphagnum peat), the proportion of mycorrhizas attributable to H. sacchariolens decreased to 25% by the end of the first year and totally disappeared in the second.The continued ability of H. sacchariolensto form mycorrhizas in a range of unsterile soils, to the virtual exclusion of mycorrhizas attributable to other fungi, is thought to be characteristic of fungi that occur early in mycorrhizal successions. In contrast,A. muscaria(a late-stage fungus), was unable to form mycorrhizas after inoculated seedlings were transferred from controlled axenic conditions to unsterilised field soils.Two arbiters of root growth were measured—numbers of roots and their dry weights. Whereas inoculations with H. sacchariolens significantly decreased numbers in the latter part of the first season, they either had no effects on dry weights as in the mineral soils or significantly increased them as in the peats. In the second season, there was further evidence, sometimes contradictory, showing that inoculations can appreciably alter the structure of developing root systems.