TY - JOUR

T1 - Linking root exudates to functional plant traits

AU - Herz, Katharina

AU - Dietz, Sophie

AU - Gorzolka, Karin

AU - Haider, Sylvia

AU - Jandt, Ute

AU - Scheel, Dierk

AU - Bruelheide, Helge

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2018 Herz et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

PY - 2018/10/3

Y1 - 2018/10/3

N2 - Primary and secondary metabolites exuded by plant roots have mainly been studied under laboratory conditions, while knowledge of root exudate patterns of plants growing in natural communities is very limited. Focusing on ten common European grassland plant species, we asked to which degree exuded metabolite compositions are specific to species or growth forms (forbs and grasses), depend on environments and local neighbourhoods, and reflect traditional plant functional traits. Root exudates were collected under field conditions and analysed using a non-targeted gas chromatography coupled mass spectrometry (GC-MS) approach. In total, we annotated 153 compounds of which 36 were identified by structure and name as metabolites mainly derived from the primary metabolism. Here we show by using variance partitioning, that the composition of exuded polar metabolites was mostly explained by plot identity, followed by plant species identity while plant species composition of the local neighbourhood played no role. Total and root dry biomass explained the largest proportion of variance in exudate composition, with additional variance explained by traditional plant traits. Although the exudate composition was quite similar between the two growth forms, we found some metabolites that occurred only in one of the two growth forms. Our study demonstrated the feasibility of measuring polar exudates under non-sterile field conditions by mass spectrometry, which opens new avenues of research for functional plant ecology.

AB - Primary and secondary metabolites exuded by plant roots have mainly been studied under laboratory conditions, while knowledge of root exudate patterns of plants growing in natural communities is very limited. Focusing on ten common European grassland plant species, we asked to which degree exuded metabolite compositions are specific to species or growth forms (forbs and grasses), depend on environments and local neighbourhoods, and reflect traditional plant functional traits. Root exudates were collected under field conditions and analysed using a non-targeted gas chromatography coupled mass spectrometry (GC-MS) approach. In total, we annotated 153 compounds of which 36 were identified by structure and name as metabolites mainly derived from the primary metabolism. Here we show by using variance partitioning, that the composition of exuded polar metabolites was mostly explained by plot identity, followed by plant species identity while plant species composition of the local neighbourhood played no role. Total and root dry biomass explained the largest proportion of variance in exudate composition, with additional variance explained by traditional plant traits. Although the exudate composition was quite similar between the two growth forms, we found some metabolites that occurred only in one of the two growth forms. Our study demonstrated the feasibility of measuring polar exudates under non-sterile field conditions by mass spectrometry, which opens new avenues of research for functional plant ecology.

KW - Biology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85054427343&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/53abbf16-bec0-3049-9c57-f5416a42c9fe/

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0204128

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0204128

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 30281675

AN - SCOPUS:85054427343

VL - 13

JO - PLoS ONE

JF - PLoS ONE

SN - 1932-6203

IS - 10

M1 - e0204128

ER -