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Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal species suppress inducible plant responses and alter defensive strategies following herbivory

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Abstract

In a greenhouse experiment using Plantago lanceolata, plants grown with different arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal species differed in constitutive levels of chemical defense depending on the species of AM fungi with which they were associated. AM fungal inoculation also modified the induced chemical response following herbivory by the specialist lepidopoteran herbivore Junonia coenia, and fungal species varied in how they affected induced responses. On average, inoculation with AM fungi substantially reduced the induced chemical response as compared with sterile controls, and inoculation with a mixture of AM fungi suppressed the induced response of P. lanceolata to herbivory. These results suggest that AM fungi can exert controlling influence over plant defensive phenotypes, and a portion of the substantial variation among experimental tests of induced chemical responses may be attributable to AM fungi.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank David McNutt, Julie Gummow, Dacia Montemayor, Alex Nguyen, Tommy Zajac, Lisa Pratt, Simon Brassel, and David Finkelstein for assistance with data collection, protocols, and equipment; and Fred Nijhout and Laura Grunert for providing Junonia coenia butterflies. Thanks to Keith Clay, Heather Reynolds, Curt Lively, Peggy Schultz, Scott Mangan, Tom Platt, Jennifer Rudgers, Rick Lankau, Mirka Macel, Etzel Garrido Espinosa, Kasey Barton, Bill Bowman, Yan Linhart, Nancy Stamp, and the Bever/Schultz laboratory group for taking the time to review and discuss this paper with us. We thank two anonymous reviewers for comments which improved the manuscript. We acknowledge the support of Sigma Xi Grant-In-Aid of Research, Indiana University McCormick Grant, and NSF grants DEB-0407816 to Alison Bennett and DEB-0049080 and DEB-0616891 to Jim Bever. All experiments comply with the current laws of the USA.

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Author notes

  1. Alison Elizabeth Bennett

    Present address: University of Wisconsin, 845B Russell Labs, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI, 53706-1598, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Indiana University, 1001 E 3rd St, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA

    Alison Elizabeth Bennett & James D. Bever

  2. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, University of Colorado, 334 UCB, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA

    M. Deane Bowers

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  1. Alison Elizabeth Bennett
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  3. M. Deane Bowers
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Correspondence to Alison Elizabeth Bennett.

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Communicated by Bernhard Schmid.

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Bennett, A.E., Bever, J.D. & Deane Bowers, M. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal species suppress inducible plant responses and alter defensive strategies following herbivory. Oecologia 160, 771–779 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-009-1338-5

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