Impact of growth and uptake patterns of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi on plant phosphorus uptake—a modelling study

By Andrea Schnepf, Tiina Roose, P. Schweiger. Plant and Soil, 2008

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In this paper we present a mathematical model for estimating external mycelium growth of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and its effect on root uptake of phosphate (P). The model describes P transport in soil and P uptake by both root and fungi on the single root scale. We investigate differences in soil P depletion and overall P influx into a mycorrhizal root by assuming that different spatial regions of mycelia are active in P uptake. When all external hyphae contribute to P uptake, overall uptake is dominated by the fungus and the most effective growth pattern appears to be the one using a high level of anastomosis. The same is true when only the proportion of external hyphae assumed to be active contributes to uptake. When uptake is restricted to the tips, hyphal contribution to overall P uptake is less dominant; the most effective growth pattern appears to be the one characterised by nonlinear branching where branching stops at a given maximal hyphal tip density. Comparison to measured P depletion in the literature suggests that the scenario where active hyphae are contributing to P uptake is likely to fit the data best. These quantitative predictions promote our understanding of the mycorrhizal symbiosis and its role in plant P nutrition.

Subfields: Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8f6dae2445acc9bfc496db8f9415327c4228629f

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Citations in the corpus

Acquisition of phosphorus and nitrogen in the rhizosphere and plant growth promotion by microorganisms (2009, background): “Mycorrhizal colonization of roots (as discussed below) similarly provides a significant increase in the effective volume of soil explored with associated depletion of soil P (Tarafdar and Marschner 1994 and as modelled by Schnepf et al. 2008).”
Traits related to differences in function among three arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (2011, background): “These processes are responsible for the specific growth pattern of an AM fungus ( Schnepf et al. 2008b ).”
Roles of Arbuscular Mycorrhizas in Plant Phosphorus Nutrition: Interactions between Pathways of Phosphorus Uptake in Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Roots Have Important Implications for Understanding and Manipulating Plant Phosphorus Acquisition1 (2011, background): “…AM plants might be caused by downregulation of the plant PiTs in root epidermis plus root hairs (directly via the presence of AM fungi or indirectly via increased plant P status) and/or by competition for P between roots and hyphae in the depletion cylinder around the root (Schnepf et al., 2008).”
Acquisition of phosphorus and other poorly mobile nutrients by roots. Where do plant nutrition models fail? (2011, background): “Interestingly, numerical modelling proposed by Schnepf et al. (2008a) based upon different patterns of mycelial growth—linear or non linear branching or anastomosis (Schnepf and Roose 2006)—was able to fit reasonably well the measured values of hyphal length densities of three arbuscular…”
Modeling Soil Processes: Review, Key Challenges, and New Perspectives (2016, background): “Improved descriptions of root solute uptake include root hairs, root exudation, and rhizodeposition, which increases microbial activity (Kuzyakov and Domanski, 2000), or the role of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (Schnepf et al., 2008b; Leitner et al., 2010; Schnepf et al., 2012).”