This year’s seminar of Plant Ecology lab titled “Vegetation, global processes and biotic interactions” took place on April 21-22 in Haanja. PhD students presented their newest results and ongoing projects and Martin gave an overview of plant ecology in Tartu.

We welcome new visiting student Iolanda Ramalho da Silva. During her stay with plant ecology laboratory she is supervised by Maarja Öpik. Iolanda comes from the Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil, where she is supervised by Prof. Leonor Costa Maia. In her PhD project she studies molecular diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi along latitudinal gradient in coastal environments of Brazil.

New paper is asking how the introduction of alien ectomycorrhizal plants influences local arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities and whether it differs in sites with different biogeographic histories. To study that, samples were collected from Argentina where ectomycorrhizal trees are naturally present, and from Republic of South Africa where ectomycorrhizal trees are historically absent. In Argentina, the AM fungal community composition and richness was similar in native forests and ectomycorrhizal pine plantations. However, in South Africa, the AM fungal richness was lower in pine plantations compared to native AM fynbos.

Gazol, A.; Zobel, M.; Cantero, J.J.;  Davison, J.; Esler, K.J.; Jairus, T.; Öpik, M.; Vasar, M. & Moora, M. 2016. Impact of alien pines on local arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities – evidence from two continents. FEMS Microbiology Ecology doi: 10.1093/femsec/fiw073.