Mycorrhizal Interactions With Climate, Soil Parent Material, and Topography

Soil characteristics arise as emergent properties of complex interactions among climate, parent material, topography, time, and living organisms. We explore the role of mycorrhizas in this five-factor model of soil development, with a focus on the three physiochemical factors. Climate influences the environmental conditions and resources that act as selection pressures to plants and their associated fungi. In cold and wet environments, ericoid and ectomycorrhizas help plants acquire essential nutrients from organic matter, and in hot and wet environments arbuscular mycorrhizas help plants acquire nutrients from highly weathered mineral soils. Soil parent material influences the mineral and structural properties of soils, and mycorrhizas help plants adapt to these properties. Topography generates local-scale variation in soil properties that recapitulate landscape-scale variation generated by climate and parent material. A better understanding of the responses of mycorrhizas to climate, parent material, and topography will advance our ability to predict the distribution and function of mycorrhizas.