ArticleThe ISME journal2022
Forest tree growth is linked to mycorrhizal fungal composition and function across Europe.
Article in The ISME journal, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
55 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 185 citations in OpenAlex.
- Shared buddies: ectomycorrhizal fungal communities in pinus and quercus and their potential relevance for mixed-forest restoration.Mycorrhiza · 2026Pooled it
- Ectomycorrhizal fungi in tropical Africa: hidden diversity, spatial turnover, and functional effects on tree growth.Mycorrhiza · 2026Review
- Unique soil fungal communities are associated with disappearing ash trees in a northern temperate hardwood forest.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Beyond detection: unveiling microbial dynamics in oak seedlings using fungal isolation and amplicon sequencing.Environmental microbiome · 2026Article
- Fungal highways to water: Mechanisms of drought tolerance in arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal symbioses.Mycorrhiza · 2026Review
- Ectomycorrhizal Symbiosis as a Bio-Enhancement Strategy for Transplantation of Somatic Embryo-DerivedPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Post-fire Succession and Soil Chemical Properties Shape Soil Fungal Community Structure and Diversity in Hemiboreal Scots Pine Forests in Estonia.Microbial ecology · 2026Article
- Biogeography and host associations of Russula subsection Xerampelinae based on large-scale analysis of UNITE sequence data.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Dynamics of ectomycorrhizal communities in Sardinian cork oak forests: influence of management system, lithological substrate and season.Mycorrhiza · 2026Article
- Impacts of ectomycorrhizal forest change on nutrient cycling, forest resilience, and ecosystem services.The ISME journal · 2026Review
- Amino acid biostimulant increases radiata pine photosynthetic efficiency and growth with shifts in mycobiome and nitrogen assimilation.Environmental microbiome · 2025Article
- Transcriptome-guided discovery of novel plant-associated genes in a rhizosphere Pseudomonas.Microbiome · 2025Article
- Soil microbial community differences drive variation in Pinus sylvestris physiology, productivity, and responses to elevated COEnvironmental microbiome · 2025Article
- Cross-scale drivers of soil fungal diversity in fragmented forests of southwestern China.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Low soil phosphorus and high symbiotic fungal richness inhibits plant aboveground biomass in fragmented forests in China.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Emerging trend of increasing spring frost damage for beech at higher elevations in the Jura Mountains: evidence from tree-ring data.The New phytologist · 2025Article
- Article
- Biological interactions and soil properties shape bacterial and fungal communities during restoration of Pinus thunbergii shelter in saline soils.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2025Article
- Convergence of root ectomycorrhizal fungal communities across Pinaceae developmental stages in temperate forests in northeastern China.iScience · 2025Article
- Mycorrhizal Fungi Influence on Mature Tree Growth: Stronger in High-Nitrogen Soils for an EMF-Associated Tree and in Low-Nitrogen Soils for Two AMF-Associated Trees.Plant-environment interactions (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
25 authors at 14 institutions in 7 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Most trees form symbioses with ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) which influence access to growth-limiting soil resources. Mesocosm experiments repeatedly show that EMF species differentially affect plant development, yet whether these effects ripple up to influence the growth of entire forests remains unknown. Here we tested the effects of EMF composition and functional genes relative to variation in well-known drivers of tree growth by combining paired molecular EMF surveys with high-resolution forest inventory data across 15 European countries. We show that EMF composition was linked to a three-fold difference in tree growth rate even when controlling for the primary abiotic drivers of tree growth. Fast tree growth was associated with EMF communities harboring high inorganic but low organic nitrogen acquisition gene proportions and EMF which form contact versus medium-distance fringe exploration types. These findings suggest that EMF composition is a strong bio-indicator of underlying drivers of tree growth and/or that variation of forest EMF communities causes differences in tree growth. While it may be too early to assign causality or directionality, our study is one of the first to link fine-scale variation within a key component of the forest microbiome to ecosystem functioning at a continental scale.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.