Wei Fu paper accepted by Global Change Biology
Wei Fu and coauthors show that plant productivity responses to extreme drought are linked to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal diversity.
Authors: Wei Fu, Qiang Yu, Haiyang Zhang, Chong Xu, Xingguo Han, Baodong Chen
Journal: Global Change Biology, 2026
Plant and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal diversity are both positively linked to ecosystem productivity, but the persistence of these diversity-productivity relationships under climate extremes remains poorly understood. This study established a grassland experiment at two proximate sites with distinct natural plant and AM fungal communities, imposing intense and chronic extreme drought regimes that each exceeded a 20-year recurrence interval.
The results show that AM fungal diversity consistently outperformed plant diversity in predicting plant aboveground and net primary productivity, as well as compositional shifts in plant species productivity. Enhanced drought resistance in plant productivity was primarily associated with the stability of AM fungal richness rather than plant richness.
Structural equation modelling further confirmed that AM fungal richness buffered drought effects on productivity and plant richness, with stronger effects on productivity than those of plant richness and soil properties. These findings indicate that AM fungal diversity may play an important role in sustaining ecosystem functioning under rapid climate change.