Arbuscular mycorrhizal root colonization depends on the spatial distribution of the host plants

Despite their ubiquity in terrestrial ecosystems, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) experience dispersion constraints and thus depend on the spatial distribution of the plant hosts. Our understanding of fungal-plant interactions with respect to their spatial distributions and implications for the functioning of the symbiosis remain limited. We here manipulated the location of habitat patches of Medicago lupulina in two experiments to explore the responses of AMF root colonization and extraradical hyphae. We tested the specific hypothesis that AMF-plant habitats high in connectance would stimulate root colonization and induce denser functional root colonization (colonization rate of arbuscules plus coils) because of higher propagule availability between nearby host plant patches (experiment 1). In experiment 2, we anticipated similar responses in mixed habitats of different soil fertility, namely phosphorus-fertilized or unfertilized soil, and anticipated a higher density of extraradical hyphae in the soil connecting the habitats with increased functional root colonization. In agreement with our hypothesis, we found the highest total and functional root colonization in unfragmented micro-landscapes, describing landscapes that occur within a spatial scale of a few centimeters with the AMF-plant habitats positioned adjacent to each other. In the second experiment, overdispersed micro-landscapes promoted functional root colonization. This study provides experimental evidence that the spatial distribution of habitats can determine AMF abundance at the microscale. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00572-022-01087-0.