The foundation of the forest : function and maintenance of symbiosis between ectomycorrhizal plants and fungi
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Temperate and boreal forests can extend across thousands of kilometers, but some of the key forces shaping their ecology and evolution act on a micron scale. Roots alone often are not small enough to penetrate resource-rich soil pores, but fungal hyphae are: Many trees in these forests rely on symbiosis with ectomycorrhizal fungi to access soil nutrients. This dissertation explores the fine-scale mechanisms that make this symbiosis possible over ecological and evolutionary time, using physiology and gene expression as lenses to examine what happens when a hypha meets a root. The symbiosis itself is based around a cooperative exchange of resources, in which the plant provides carbon in exchange for nitrogen, phosphorous, and water scavenged by the fungus. In this dissertation, I treat this exchange as a resource economy, using stable isotope enrichment to examine trading dynamics and link them to symbiotic function. I also explore how biochemical negotiation, regulated at a transcriptomic level, affects the outcomes of these belowground exchanges, mediating the compatibility of plants and fungi across ecological and evolutionary time. Although a hypha and a root may only exchange a handful of molecules in a soil pore a few microns wide, it is these tiny interactions on which evolution acts to stabilize cooperation and produce the diversity of the forests that we see. Using genomic and physiological techniques, my dissertation highlights the power of micro-scale interactions to affect macro-scale outcomes.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2019; ©2019 |
| Publication date | 2019; 2019 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Bogar, Laura Meredith |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Peay, Kabir |
| Thesis advisor | Peay, Kabir |
| Thesis advisor | Fukami, Tadashi, 1972- |
| Thesis advisor | Vitousek, Peter Morrison |
| Degree committee member | Fukami, Tadashi, 1972- |
| Degree committee member | Vitousek, Peter Morrison |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Biology. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Laura M. Bogar. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Biology. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2019. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2019 by Laura Meredith Bogar
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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