2017 ESA Annual Meeting (August 6 -- 11)

OOS 40 - Does It Scale? Linking Plant-Microbe Mutualisms to Population, Community, and Ecosystem Dynamics

Thursday, August 10, 2017: 1:30 PM-5:00 PM
Portland Blrm 255, Oregon Convention Center
Organizer:
Aaron S. David
Co-organizer:
Michelle E. Afkhami
Moderator:
Kerri M. Crawford
Mutualistic associations, in which partner species exchange resources or services, are ubiquitous in nature and can ultimately result in dramatic fitness benefits for participating organisms. However, these interactions do not happen in isolation, but rather occur in the complex contexts of populations, communities, and ecosystems. Not only can these contexts have a substantial effect on the outcome of mutualistic associations for the participating organisms, these associations can ultimately affect higher order processes, such as population dynamics, community assembly, and ecosystem function, though not necessarily in ways that might be predicted. For example, does engaging in a mutualism translate to greater population size, community dominance, or ecosystem engineering for a species? Might there be hidden costs to mutualism that prevent scaling the benefits to higher order processes? Do mutualists substantially impact fundamental ecological processes and properties like succession and productivity-diversity relationships? And, do these changes to higher order processes have important consequences for the restoration and conservation goals? In this organized session, speakers will explore the many other ways that the effects of mutualisms scale to these higher order processes and the simultaneous influence of higher order biological processes on these interactions. We have chosen to focus this session on plant-microbe mutualisms (e.g., fungal endophytes, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, and rhizobia) in light of the tremendous diversity and abundance of these hidden players that are increasingly recognized, characterized, and quantified with the recent advent of sequencing technologies. This session will synthesize the broad effects of mutualisms beyond the two partnered individuals in order to understand the larger impacts mutualisms play in ecological systems. We intend for the session to have broad appeal for researchers interested in species interactions, microbes, plants, ecological complexity ranging from individuals to ecosystems, and applied goals of restoration and conservation.
1:30 PM
Mycorrhizal feedbacks on plant fitness: A role in plant succession?
James D. Bever, University of Kansas; Liz Koziol, The Land Institute; Karen C. Abbott, Case Western Reserve University; James Umbanhowar, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Peggy A. Schultz, University of Kansas
1:50 PM
Can a mutualistic fungus expand its host’s range? A population modeling approach
Aaron S. David, University of Miami; Christopher A. Searcy, University of Miami; Sharon Y. Strauss, University of California, Davis; Michelle E. Afkhami, University of Miami
2:10 PM
Fungal endophyte mutualism depends on tri-trophic interactions in the Populus phyllosphere
Posy E. Busby, Oregon State University; Matthew A. Barbour, University of British Columbia; Gregory M. Crutsinger, University of British Columbia; George Newcombe, University of Idaho
2:30 PM
Restoration methods alter AM fungal abundance and community composition
Mia R. Maltz, University of California, Riverside; Milan Mitrovich, Natural Communities Coalition; Sarah Kimball, UC Irvine; Megan Lulow, UC Irvine; Jutta C. Burger, Irvine Ranch Conservancy; Riley T. Pratt, University of California, Irvine; Barry Nerhus, Endemic Environmental Services; Kathleen Balazs, Irvine Ranch Conservancy; Soren Weber, University of California Riverside; Michael F. Allen, University of California; Edith B. Allen, University of California, Riverside; Emma L. Aronson, University of California Riverside
2:50 PM
Digging deep: Evaluating the use of soil microbes in restoration, a meta-analysis
Theo Michaels, University of Kansas; Jeff R. Powell, University of Western Sydney; Benjamin Sikes, University of Kansas
3:10 PM
3:20 PM
Shifts in grass endophyte communities due to petroleum pollution of the past, present and future
Sunshine A. Van Bael, Tulane University; Demetra Kandalepas, Southeastern Louisiana University; Candice Lumibao, Tulane University; Stephen K. Formel, Tulane University
4:00 PM
Do microbes matter? Combining demographic modeling and experimental approaches to understand the role of soil microbes for persistence of imperiled plant species
Michelle E. Afkhami, University of Miami; Aaron S. David, University of Miami; Pedro F. Quintana-Ascencio, University of Central Florida; Christopher A. Searcy, University of Miami
4:20 PM
Soil fungi affect nitrogen dynamics of plants and biocrusts in arid lands
Eva Dettweiler-Robinson, University of New Mexico; Robert Sinsabaugh, University of New Mexico; Jennifer Rudgers, University of New Mexico
4:40 PM
Plant-microbial feedbacks, phylogenetic relatedness and community assembly in tallgrass prairies
Scott A. Mangan, Washington University in St. Louis; Rachel E. Becknell, Washington University in St. Louis; Claudia Stein, Washington University in St. Louis