The role of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in agricultural grasslands exposed to increasingly persistent weather patterns

A recent fingerprint of climate change is the increasing persistence of weather patterns, whichimplies that average weather is making way for anomalously long periods of dry or wetmeteorological conditions.

This shift in climate regimes is likely to negative affect ecosystemfunctioning, yet scientific knowledge on this is still scarce as much research has focused onunidirectional changes (e.g. only an increase in dry periods).

In the current project, we will fill part ofthis knowledge gap by studying impacts of increasingly persistent weather in agricultural grasslands.Using a state-of-the-art experimental platform, we will test how a sequence of dry, wet, oralternating dry and wet growing seasons affects grasslands relevant in Flanders, and whether plantcommunity composition (which grasses are present in which numbers) can modulate the outcome.Furthermore, we will evaluate the importance of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in potentiallyaltering impacts of increasingly persistent precipitation regimes, identifying AMF colonization inrelation to plant performance and how AMF regulate biochemical and molecular pathways in differentgrassland species.

The UN has recently called for more attention for nature-based solutions in thefight against negative climate change impacts.

This project contributes to that by elucidating theimportance of plant community composition and AMF in safeguarding grassland ecosystemfunctioning under increasingly persistent weather.