EGU21-12568
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-12568
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Fungi play a key role in the restoration of species-rich grasslands: trace-labelling carbon through the food chain

Elly Morriën1,3, Casper Quist2, Sena Cuk1, Jules Koppen1, Eva Varkevisser1, and Emilia Hannula3
Elly Morriën et al.
  • 1University of Amsterdam, IBED, Earth Surface Science (ESS), Amsterdam, Netherlands (w.e.morrien@uva.nl)
  • 2Wageningen University & Research, Biosystematics
  • 3Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Terrestrial Ecology

Restoring natural plant communities on abandoned agricultural fields can be challenging due to a degraded soil community and a fertilizer legacy. We discovered that fungi are the initiators of a tighter connected soil food web which restores the closed carbon and nutrients cycles in soils, thereby accommodating species-rich plant communities in grasslands. Boosting the fungal channel as a bottom-up approach could thus be used as a next-generation restoration measure. We show data of soil inoculation experiments and trace the progression of change in the fungal community via sequencing and functioning via community response profiles. We assessed the top-down foraging of predators and consumers on the microbiome by analysing gut contents of consumers and predators from different restoration stages. We will be able to show preliminary data on the effect of fungi and their higher trophic levels in stimulating species-rich plant communities as well as give a prospect on the wider applications for microbiome engineering.

How to cite: Morriën, E., Quist, C., Cuk, S., Koppen, J., Varkevisser, E., and Hannula, E.: Fungi play a key role in the restoration of species-rich grasslands: trace-labelling carbon through the food chain, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-12568, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-12568, 2021.

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