Kerttu Valtanen, Prof. Dr. Andrea Polle


Functional role of mycorrhizal diversity: cost and benefit analyses

Many temperate forest tree species show high diversity of their ectomycorrhizal fungal partners. However, only few of these fungi species form abundant EM. The task of this experimental study will be to isolate and cultivate the abundant and some selected rare mycorrhizal species and investigate their interaction in terms of costs and benefits for the host. To address these goals environmental parameters will be varied to find out, which factors control formation of EM and whether different fungi afford different benefits to their host.