Floccularia luteovirens, as an edible saprotroph mushroom fungus that grows widely on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, can form Type II fairy rings (Wang et al. 2005; Xing et al. 2018). The fairy rings formed by F. luteovirens significantly affect the pH, moisture, texture, and nutritional content of the soil (including available phosphorus, nitrate/ammonia-nitrogen, etc.), and the associated plant community. F. luteovirens also alters soil microbial communities. The soil microbial diversity was lower on F. luteovirens fairy rings than that outside of the fairy rings (Xing et al. 2018). Different from type I fairy ring, the diversity and coverage of plants in the stimulation zone of F. luteovirens fairy rings are higher than those outside the stimulation zone (Xing et al. 2018). These studies suggest that F. luteovirens fairy rings have important roles in modulating growth of alpine meadow plants on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. However, the underlying physiological and molecular mechanisms of F. luteovirens in modulating the growth and stress tolerance of alpine meadow plants remain largely unclear. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the importance of the phenomenon of the fairy rings for maintain stability and species richness of the alpine meadow ecosystem on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
We speculated that F. luteovirens fairy rings affect the growth of alpine meadow plants by modulating metabolite accumulation in plants and/or soil. To address this hypothesis, we investigated the growth and metabolic profiles of two alpine meadow species that are the dominant plants growing on F. luteovirens fairy rings, monocotyledonous K. humilis and dicotyledonous Oxytropis coerulea, growing on and outside of F. luteovirens fairy rings through physiological and metabolome analyses. We also compared soil metabolite accumulation on and outside of F. luteovirens fairy rings. Our results indicated that F. luteovirens improves growth and environmental adaptation of alpine meadow plants by metabolic regulation.
This result was published in Plant and Soil with the title of "Floccularia luteovirens modulates the growth of alpine meadow plants and affects soil metabolite accumulation on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau".
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