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Norway Spruce Fine Roots and Fungal Hyphae Grow Deeper in Forest Soils After Extended Drought

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Soil Biological Communities and Ecosystem Resilience

Part of the book series: Sustainability in Plant and Crop Protection ((SUPP))

Abstract

Global warming will most likely lead to increased drought stress in forest trees. We wanted to describe the adaptive responses of fine roots and fungal hyphae, at different soil depths, in a Norway spruce stand to long-term drought stress induced by precipitation exclusion over two growing seasons. We used soil cores, minirhizotrons and nylon meshes to estimate growth, biomass and distribution of fine roots and fungal hyphae at different soil depths. In control plots fine roots proliferated in upper soil layers, whereas in drought plots there was no fine root growth in upper soil layers and roots mostly occupied deeper soil layers. Fungal hyphae followed the same pattern as fine roots, with the highest biomass in deeper soil layers in drought plots. We conclude that both fine roots and fungal hyphae respond to long-term drought stress by growing into deeper soil layers.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Jaromíra Dreslerová for excellent technical assistance. This work was funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Financial Mechanism, the Norwegian Financial Mechanism (grant no. A/CZ0046/2/0009), Mendel University in Brno (grant IGA 73/2013), the EEA project FRAMEADAPT EHP-CZ02-OV-1-044-01-2014, and the project “Indicators of Tree Vitality” (Reg. No. CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0265), co-financed by the European Social Fund and the Czech Republic. We also acknowledge contribution by COST Actions FP1106 “STReESS” and FP1305 “BioLink”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, P.O.Box 115, N-1431, Ås, Norway

    Isabella Børja, Nina E. Nagy, Holger Lange, Paal Krokene & Toril D. Eldhuset

  2. BOKU Vienna, Gregor Mendel Str. 33, A-1180, Vienna, Austria

    Douglas L. Godbold

  3. Centre MendelGlobe – Global Climate Change and Managed Ecosystems, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědělská 3, 61300, Brno, Czech Republic

    Jan Světlík

  4. Departement of Forest Botany, Dendrology and Geobiocoenology, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědělská 3, 61300, Brno, Czech Republic

    Roman Gebauer, Josef Urban & Daniel Volařík

  5. Siberian Federal University, 79 Svobodny pr, 660041, Krasnoyarsk, Russia

    Josef Urban

  6. Department of Forest Protection and Wildlife Management, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědělská 3, 61300, Brno, Czech Republic

    Petr Čermák

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  1. Isabella Børja
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  11. Toril D. Eldhuset
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Correspondence to Isabella Børja .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom

    Martin Lukac

  2. National Research Council, Water Research Institute, CNR-IRSA, Rome, Italy

    Paola Grenni

  3. Department of Biology, Agriculture and Food Sciences, CNR, Rome, Italy

    Mauro Gamboni

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Børja, I. et al. (2017). Norway Spruce Fine Roots and Fungal Hyphae Grow Deeper in Forest Soils After Extended Drought. In: Lukac, M., Grenni, P., Gamboni, M. (eds) Soil Biological Communities and Ecosystem Resilience. Sustainability in Plant and Crop Protection. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63336-7_8

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