The community composition of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in the plant root is influenced by both biotic and abiotic factors. Knowledge gaps remain with respect to the community composition of AMF in agricultural weeds and crops, which encounter highly disturbed environments in agricultural systems. A better understanding of the relative contributions of biotic and abiotic factors to AMF community composition in weed and crop roots may help to determine the potential for using AMF in integrated weed management systems. A two-year field experiment was conducted to assess the effect of plant species and agricultural practices on variation in AMF community compositions in weed and crop roots. Five weed species, including host and non-host species, were planted side by side with maize in an agricultural field. A two by two treatment factorial of tillage (low disturbance vs high disturbance) and cover crop (cover crop vs no cover crop) was imposed to manipulate soil conditions in the field. Weeds and maize were harvested three weeks after planting. AM fungal DNA were extracted and sequenced from each plant species. Permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) and principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) were used to quantify and visualize the relative importance of plant identity and environmental factors in explaining variation in AMF community composition in weed roots.
Results/Conclusions
Results of PERMANOVA showed that plant identity, tillage, and cover crop respectively explained 64%, 2%, and 2% variation in AMF community composition in weed and maize roots. In addition, PCoA plots displayed that AMF community compositions in weed and maize roots were clustered by plant phylogenetic distances. These results indicate that AMF community composition in weed and maize roots are primarily driven by plant identity, meanwhile plant evolutionary history is playing a role. Changes of environmental factors have relatively limited impacts on AMF community compositions in weeds and maize.