Assessing the importance of native mycorrhizal fungi to improve tree establishment after wildfires
Autor
Atala, Cristian
Reyes, Sebastián A.
Molina-Montenegro, Marco A.
Fecha
2023Resumen
The Chilean matorral is a heavily threatened Mediterranean-type ecosystem due to humanrelated activities such as anthropogenic fires. Mycorrhizal fungi may be the key microorganisms to
help plants cope with environmental stress and improve the restoration of degraded ecosystems.
However, the application of mycorrhizal fungi in the restoration of the Chilean matorral is limited
because of insufficient local information. Consequently, we assessed the effect of mycorrhizal
inoculation on the survival and photosynthesis at set intervals for two years after a fire event in four
native woody plant species, namely: Peumus boldus, Quillaja saponaria, Cryptocarya alba, and Kageneckia
oblonga, all dominant species of the matorral. Additionally, we assessed the enzymatic activity of
three enzymes and macronutrient in the soil in mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal plants. The results
showed that mycorrhizal inoculation increased survival in all studied species after a fire and increased
photosynthesis in all, but not in P. boldus. Additionally, the soil associated with mycorrhizal plants
had higher enzymatic activity and macronutrient levels in all species except in Q. saponaria, in which
there was no significant mycorrhization effect. The results suggest that mycorrhizal fungi could
increase the fitness of plants used in restoration initiatives after severe disturbances such as fires
and, consequently, should be considered for restoration programs of native species in threatened
Mediterranean ecosystems.
Fuente
Journal of Fungi, 9(4), 421Link de Acceso
Click aquí para ver el documentoIdentificador DOI
doi.org/10.3390/jof9040421Colecciones
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