Microbe Science for Gardeners by Robert Pavlis

Author:Robert Pavlis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Society Publishers

Animal-Mycorrhizal Interactions

Springtails (Collembola) are small animals that are normally less than a quarter inch (6 mm) in size and live in soil and leaf litter. They can’t digest the organic matter, but they are important in the process because they chop up larger organic matter into smaller pieces, which are then more efficiently decomposed by smaller microbes.

Collembola also feeds on fungus. These hyphal grazers seem to prefer saprotrophic and parasitic fungi over mycorrhizal fungi, but they will feed on the latter. This type of grazing does not seem to impact plant growth, although this has not been studied extensively.

But fungi don’t just sit around waiting to be eaten. The EM fungus Laccaria bicolor actively kills and consumes springtails and then passes on the excess nitrogen to their hosts, such as the eastern white pine (Pinus strobus). When these seedlings are colonized by the fungus, as much as 25 percent of the nitrogen in the seedlings comes from digested springtails.

AM fungi keeps the population of some nematode species low while other species seem to grow better in the presence of AM fungi.

Earthworms ingest all kinds of organic matter, and in the process they ingest fungal propagules which are then spread throughout soil in their castings.

This book talks mostly about microbes and their interactions with each other, but it is important to understand that very similar relationships exist between microbes and other small life. These animals then interact with even larger ones and so on up the food chain. Even quite large animals, such as deer and skunks, rummage in soil or eat plants and thereby pick up microbe hitchhikers that are moved to new locations.

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