The prairies of Texas, which covered millions of acres, has been decimated to less than 1% due to many combined factors, most stemming from man’s conversion of the traditional habitat into agricultural and urban lands. The restoration of the original landscape in this rapidly disappearing ecosystem is of utmost importance, as less of the original ecoregion is left for preservation with every passing year as supply and demand and population expansion continue to invade the prairies. Understanding the relationship between native prairie plant species and the soil they grow in is an important piece in the puzzle to achieving success in this restoration process. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi have been shown to play a major role in the survival of many grassland plants through a symbiotic relationship with their root systems. By providing access to increased nutrients through root colonization, the presence of these mycorrhizae is crucial to maintain plant diversity and shaping the plant community in the prairies. Understanding their association with the natural processes that have long kept ecological balances in check (such as prairie fires and grazing) is important as well. Through the Botanical Research Institute (BRIT), Fort Worth, TX and the Clinton and Edith Sneed Environmental Research Area, Sherman, TX, restoration of the prairies in north-central Texas is being studied to better understand these mycorrhizal relationships during restoration of these lost prairies. We collected roots and soil samples from treatment plots at aforementioned study sites to quantify mycorrhizal colonization.
Results/Conclusions
We found up to 97.22% mycorrhizal colonization in Conyza canadensis at BRIT restoration plots with significantly higher (p<0.05) arbuscular colonization at the plots treated with living soils with no biological amendments (19.68±3.08%) compared to the plots treated with living soil with biological amendments (10.96±1.79%) and control plots with no living soils and biological amendments (10.66±1.53%), however, AM hyphal colonization didn’t show significance difference among the three treatments. Furthermore, Sneed experimental plots treated with fire, grazing and fire+grazing as restoration methods shows significantly higher hyphal colonization at the plots grazed by cattle (38.14±4.87%) compared to control plots (23.44±0.94%) and plots treated with fire+grazing combined (27.78±2.01%). Subterranean arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi is an important component of a healthy grassland ecosystem, and we believe that this continuing study expounds upon our increasing overall knowledge of their relationship with native prairies, and that results will prove significantly beneficial to their restoration and preservation as a whole.