Epiparasitic plants specialized on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

BIDARTONDO MARTÍN,; REDECKER, DIRK; HIJRI, ISABELLE; WIEMKEN, ANDRES; BRUNS, THOMAS; DOMÍNGUEZ, LAURA; SÉRSIC, ALICIA N.; LEAKE JONATHAN,; READ, DAVID

NATURE

NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP

Año: 2002 vol. 419 p. 389 - 392

0028-0836

<!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:595.3pt 841.9pt; margin:70.85pt 3.0cm 70.85pt 3.0cm; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> Over 400 non-photosynthetic species from 10 families of vascular plants obtain their carbon from fungi and are thus defined as myco-heterotrophs1.  Many of these plants are epiparasitic on green plants from which they obtain carbon by ‘cheating’ shared mycorrhizal fungi.  Epiparasitic plants previously studied utilize ectomycorrhizal fungi for C transfer and exhibit exceptional specificity for these fungi3-7.  We predicted that epiparasitism would also occur between plants linked by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF, phylum Glomeromycota).  We analyzed root samples from five Voyria species, one Voyriella species (Gentianaceae, Dicotyledonae), and three populations of Arachnitis uniflora (Corsiaceae, Monocotyledonae).  Here we show that these non-photosynthetic plants associate with AMF and display the characteristic specificity of epiparasites.  This implies that AMF mediate significant inter-plant C transfer in nature.