Rhizoeconomics: Carbon costs of phosphorus acquisition

By J. Lynch, Melissa D. Ho, Low phosphorus. Plant and Soil, 2005

453 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Plants display a wide array of physiological adaptations to low soil phosphorus availability. Here we discuss metabolic and ecological costs associated with these strategies, focusing on the carbon costs of root traits related to phosphorus acquisition in crop plants. We propose that such costs are an important component of adaptation to low phosphorus soils. In common bean, genotypes with superior low phosphorus adaptation express traits that reduce the respiratory burden of root growth, including greater allocation to metabolically inexpensive root classes, such as adventitious roots, and greater formation of cortical aerenchyma, which reduces specific root respiration. Root hair formation increases phosphorus acquisition at minimal carbon cost, but may have other unknown ecological costs. Mycorrhizas and root exudates enhance phosphorus acquisition in some taxa, but at significant carbon cost. Root architectural patterns that enhance topsoil foraging enhance phosphorus acquisition but appear to incur tradeoffs for water acquisition and spatial competition. A better understanding of the metabolic and ecological costs associated with phosphorus acquisition strategies is needed for an intelligent deployment of such traits in crop improvement programs.

Subfields: Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b64ca27ab84d1d71d1bab3c482aad49c0a5c709c

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Citations in the corpus

Multiple phosphorus acquisition strategies adopted by fine roots in low-fertility soils in Central Amazonia (2019, background): “For instance, it has been suggested that mycorrhizal fungi can receive up to 25% of C assimilated by plants (Jakobsen and Rosendahl 1990) and root exudates can represent up to half of belowground C allocation (Lynch and Ho 2005).”
Roots of the Second Green Revolution (2007, background): “Following the economic paradigm of plant resource allocation (Bloom et al. 1985), ‘cost’ denotes metabolic investment, including the production and maintenance of tissues, often measurable in units of carbon (Lynch and Ho 2005).”
Impacts of Nitrogen and Phosphorus: From Genomes to Natural Ecosystems and Agriculture (2017, background): “…of morphological and physiological traits that maximize nutrient uptake (Richardson et al., 2011), optimizing traits that increase the efficiency of ribosomes (Kreps et al., 2002; Kant et al., 2011; Veneklaas et al., 2012), and reducing the carbon costs of nutrient uptake (Lynch and Ho, 2005).”
Root Phenes for Enhanced Soil Exploration and Phosphorus Acquisition: Tools for Future Crops (2011, background): “Physiological analysis of wild-type and hairless Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) genotypes, and contrasting RILs of maize, indicates that the direct metabolic cost of root hairs is negligible (Lynch and Ho, 2005).”
Quantitative Trait Loci for Root Architecture Traits Correlated with Phosphorus Acquisition in Common Bean (2006, unknown): “Specific RL is related to root diameter (Fitter, 1985; Eissenstat 1992) and root tissue density (Fan et al., 2003; Ryser, 1996), and is important in determining the metabolic cost of root elongation, an important aspect of efficient soil exploration (Lynch and Ho, 2004).”
Mapping of QTL controlling root hair length in maize (Zea mays L.) under phosphorus deficiency (2005, background): “Lynch and Ho, 2004), we would not expect root system size alone to be simply correlated with phosphorus efficiency.”
The effect of phosphorus deficiency on nutrient uptake, nitrogen fixation and photosynthetic rate in mashbean, mungbean and soybean (2008, unknown): “Lynch and Ho (2005) observed that common bean genotypes with superior low P adaptation expressed traits that reduced the respiratory burden on root growth.”
Shovelomics: high throughput phenotyping of maize (Zea mays L.) root architecture in the field (2011, background): “In common bean, trade-offs for soil resource acquisition were incurred when roots were not deployed where the limiting resource was in greatest availability (Lynch and Ho 2005; Ho et al. 2005).”
Plant and microbial strategies to improve the phosphorus efficiency of agriculture (2011, background): “A thorough understanding of rhizosphere ecology, multi-trophic interactions (Xu 2006; Edel-Hermann et al. 2008) and genetic mechanisms associated with enhancing P-availability in ‘responsive’ soils will assist selection and targeted deployment of inoculants across farming systems, with potentially g”