Andrea Polle
Dept Forest Botany and Tree Physiology, Universität Göttingen

There is evidence for grassland ecosystems that the below-ground mycorrhizal diversity drives above-ground diversity and productivity. Little is known about these relationships in mature deciduous forest ecosystems or plantations, established for biomass production. We aim at investigating whether diversity of mycorrhizal communities is correlated with the diversity, productivity and nutrient status of tree species.
In this presentation various methods (morphotyping, sanger Sequencing, 454 sequencing) for the analysis of diversity will be presented and their pros and cons discussed. Examples of diversity in relation to tree diversity and productivity will be presented. For functional analysis of mycorrhizal communities, experimental approaches were chosen, e.g., light imitation and/or girdling to modulate the carbon flux from the trees to the roots. The significance for the mycorrhizal community will be shown. For nutritional functions nutrients in roots were analysed in relation to competition between different mycorrhizal life styles and feeding studies with stable isotopes were conducted. Some experiments regarding the stress tolerance of mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal trees will be shown and the significance of mycorrhiza for sustainable production of biomass will be discussed.
The author acknowledges financial support by the DFG (Exploratories, Beech project, Grako Hainich) and the European communities (Energypoplar) for financial support.