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The potential for phosphorus benefits through root placement in the rhizosphere of phosphorus-mobilising neighbours

  • Physiological ecology – original research
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Abstract

Plants that produce specialised cluster roots, which mobilise large quantities of poorly available nutrients such as phosphorus (P), can provide a benefit to neighbouring plants that produce roots in the cluster rhizosphere, as demonstrated previously in pot studies. To be effective, such roots must be present within the short time of peak cluster activity. We tested if this requirement is met, and quantified potential P benefits, in a hyperdiverse Mediterranean woodland of southwest Australia where cluster-rooted species are prominent. Using minirhizotrons, we monitored root dynamics during the wet season in the natural habitat. We found non-cluster roots intermingling with all 57 of the observed cluster roots of the studied tree species, Banksia attenuata. Almost all (95%) of these cases were observed in a high-moisture treatment simulating the 45-year average, but not present when we intercepted some of the rainfall. We estimate that cluster-root activity can increase P availability to intermingling roots to a theoretical maximum of 80% of total P in the studied soil. Due to their high P-remobilisation efficiency (89%), which results from P rapidly being relocated from cluster roots within the plant, senesced Banksia cluster roots are a negligible P source for other roots. We conclude that, rather than serving as a P source, it is the cluster-root activity, particularly the exudation of carboxylates, that may improve the coexistence of interacting species that are capable of root intermingling, thus potentially promoting species diversity in nutrient-poor habitats, and that this mechanism will be less effective in a drying climate.

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Acknowledgements

Michael Blair and Raymond Scott provided help at the start of the experimental setup and tube installations and for facilitating access to the field station. We are grateful to Jairo Palta, then at CSIRO in Floreat, for lending us the Bartz minirhizotron camera. Thomas Mazet played a key role with imaging during rainy days. We are especially grateful to Judith Holmes and Victoria A. Marchesini for their valuable help during the root annotation with RootFly. We thank Michael Smirk and Katrina Walton for their help quantifying nutrient concentrations of cluster roots. Finally, we thank Simone Pedrini for the illustrations of the cluster roots in Fig. 5. Funding was provided by The University of Western Australia with a Research and Development Award granted to FPT and the Australian Research Council with a Discovery Project (ARC DP0985685) to HL, EJV and KWD. KWD and EJV are also recipients of an Australian Research Council (ARC) Industrial Transformation Training grant for the Centre for Mine Site Restoration (Project Number ICI150100041).

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  1. François P. Teste

    Present address: Grupo de Estudios Ambientales, IMASL-CONICET & Universidad Nacional de San Luis, Av. Ejercito de los Andes 950, 5700, San Luis, Argentina

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia

    François P. Teste, Kingsley W. Dixon, Hans Lambers, Jun Zhou & Erik J. Veneklaas

  2. School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Kent Street, Bentley, WA, 6102, Australia

    Kingsley W. Dixon & Hans Lambers

  3. College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Green Development, Key Laboratory of Plant–Soil Interactions of the Ministry of Education, National Academy of Agriculture, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China

    Hans Lambers

  4. Key Laboratory of Mountain Surface Processes and Ecological Regulation, Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Jun Zhou

  5. School of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia

    Erik J. Veneklaas

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FPT, EJV, KWD, and HL designed the study. FPT analysed the data and wrote the first draft of the manuscript and all authors collected data and contributed substantially to revisions.

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Correspondence to François P. Teste.

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Teste, F.P., Dixon, K.W., Lambers, H. et al. The potential for phosphorus benefits through root placement in the rhizosphere of phosphorus-mobilising neighbours. Oecologia 193, 843–855 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04733-6

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