Fig 1.
Conceptual scheme indicating possible patterns between the abundance of AMF in roots vs soil compartments.
Dotted lines and coloured shapes represent three different scenarios depending on the predominance of AMF taxa with different colonization strategies. A first scenario (green shape) represents an AMF community dominated by species with preference for soil colonization. A second scenario (blue shape) represents an AMF community dominated by species with a preference for root colonization. In a third scenario (purple shape) both root and soil colonization strategies are present but their abundance tends to even out. Finally, a fourth scenario where no relationship is expected (not shown in the graph) if a) community assembly along the plant community is random (no compensated colonization strategies) or if b) the biomass allocation in root and soil of individual AMF taxa is not coupled.
Fig 2.
Linear relation between the AMF biomass in the soil and the total root length colonized for the three detected AMF structures.
(a) arbuscules (b) hyphae and (c) vesicle. NLFA 16:1w5 was used as a proxy of the AMF biomass in the soil.
Fig 3.
Differences in AMF community composition between root and soil samples.
a) Means and standard error of the difference between the relative abundances of the AMF orders Archaeosporales, Diversisporales, Glomerales and Paraglomerales in soil and root samples. Positive values indicate that, on average, root samples had a higher relative proportion than their soil pairs, while negative values indicate the opposite trend. Different letters indicate significant differences between orders. b) Nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) ordination plots of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities present in soil and roots compartments based on relative proportions of OTUs. Ellipses delimit the 95% confidence interval around centroids.