Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) have the potential to benefit agroecosystems through role in nutrient availability. Yet, little is known about how AMF communities vary within agricultural landscapes and more specifically, how a range of farm management practices affect AMF communities. There are roughly ~200 species of AMF yet more than 70% of vascular plants, including major crops, are host plants to mycorrhizal mutualists. While AMF are not host-specific, mycorrhizal associations are also not random. Plant diversity is often proposed to explain the patterns of soil microbial diversity in which greater plant diversity increases belowground habitat heterogeneity. Thus, in agroecosystems, a relationship between managed aboveground diversity (e.g. crop diversity) and belowground AMF diversity is expected. However, the relationship between plant communities and AMF communities may not be based on species per se but functional diversity at both the plant and AMF levels. In this study, we are exploring how diversifying crops in space and time, through intercropping or monocropping, in agroecosystems will impact AMF community composition through increasing plant heterogeneity.
Results/Conclusions
Our recent analyses examined how (high versus low) plant functional diversity across a spatial scale (i.e. intercropping or monocropping systems) on agroecosystems relates to AMF community composition. Preliminary results show that AMF colonization of crop plants are spatially heterogenous on farms with greater plant diversity but dependent on cropping history. This result between crop diversity and AMF suggest that crop plant type and cropping history influences the extent of root colonization by AMF. Further, edaphic properties, especially bulk density, were significantly correlated with cropping system type highlighting the role diversifying management practices has on soil biological and physical properties. Together, this research aims to understand how diversifying farm management practices to support multiple functions can help farmers in decision making for increasing positive dynamic soil properties that can be harnessed through belowground biodiversity.