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- Title
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi promote coexistence and niche divergence of sympatric palm species on a remote oceanic island.
- Authors
Osborne, Owen G.; De‐Kayne, Rishi; Bidartondo, Martin I.; Hutton, Ian; Baker, William J.; Turnbull, Colin G. N.; Savolainen, Vincent
- Abstract
Summary: Microbes can have profound effects on their hosts, driving natural selection, promoting speciation and determining species distributions. However, soil‐dwelling microbes are rarely investigated as drivers of evolutionary change in plants. We used metabarcoding and experimental manipulation of soil microbiomes to investigate the impact of soil and root microbes in a well‐known case of sympatric speciation, the <italic>Howea</italic> palms of Lord Howe Island (Australia). Whereas <italic>H. forsteriana</italic> can grow on both calcareous and volcanic soils, <italic>H. belmoreana</italic> is restricted to, but more successful on, volcanic soil, indicating a trade‐off in adaptation to the two soil types. We suggest a novel explanation for this trade‐off. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are significantly depleted in <italic>H. forsteriana</italic> on volcanic soil, relative to both <italic>H. belmoreana</italic> on volcanic soil and <italic>H. forsteriana</italic> on calcareous soil. This is mirrored by the results of survival experiments, where the sterilization of natural soil reduces <italic>Howea</italic> fitness in every soil–species combination except <italic>H. forsteriana</italic> on volcanic soil. Furthermore, AMF‐associated genes exhibit evidence of divergent selection between <italic>Howea</italic> species. These results show a mechanism by which divergent adaptation can have knock‐on effects on host–microbe interactions, thereby reducing interspecific competition and promoting the coexistence of plant sister species.
- Subjects
FUNGI diversity; VESICULAR-arbuscular mycorrhizas; VOLCANIC soils; SOIL fungi; MYCORRHIZAL fungi
- Publication
New Phytologist, 2018, Vol 217, Issue 3, p1254
- ISSN
0028-646X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/nph.14850