Melissa H. Morris

TL;DR: A global analysis to disentangle the global determinants of diversity and community composition for ectomycorrhizal fungi-microbial symbionts that play key roles in plant nutrition in most temperate and many tropical forest ecosystems provides useful biogeographic and ecological hypotheses for explaining the distribution of fungi.

TL;DR: It was determined that both soil extractable phosphorus and oak host species explained a significant proportion of the variation in EM species distribution, indicating that plant host species can be an important factor influencing EM fungal community composition, even within congeneric trees.

TL;DR: Canonical correspondence analysis indicated that oak host was significant in explaining some of the variation in ectomycorrhizal communities, despite the fact that the two Quercus species belong to the same red oak lineage (section Lobatae).

TL;DR: This is the first study to characterize the belowground EM community in a tropical montane cloud forest in southern Mexico and identifies two or more EM fungi on 26% of the root tips.

TL;DR: At the interface between plants and soils, ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi explore soils, acquire resources, transfer resources to plants, and acquire carbon from plants and play key roles in ecosystems processes such as decomposition, nutrient cycling, soil carbon storage, productivity and sustainability.