Lezing 'Meet the PhD Jury: Mycorrhizal associations and growth of multipurpose trees in the drylands'

In a stressful environment Arbuscular Mycorrhizal (AM) fungi enhance access to moisture and nutrients and thereby influence plant performance. All woodland plants in northern Ethiopia are colonized by AM fungi. Root colonization levels in dry and wet seasons demonstrated that in the sites with the harshest conditions, AM plants and fungi respond to pulsed resource availability by temporally disconnecting carbon gain by the plant and carbon expenditure by the fungus.

Mycorrhizal Boswellia benefits from drought pulses during the short rainy season by acquiring carbon and water after rain events and storing them in coarse roots. Acacia species also benefit from the AM symbiosis, but the Acacias mainly benefit from higher water availability, whereas the Boswellia benefits at water or nutrient-stressed conditions. Seedlings of Boswellia are competitively inferior to seedlings of Acacia, and neither the presence of AM fungi nor a stronger water limitation affected this outcome.