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In order better understand the mechanisms involved in lodgepole pine regeneration following disturbance, lodgepole pine seedlings were inoculated with the fungal communities from different disturbed lodgepole pine stands and grown for nine months. Specifically, soil from lodgepole stands in Western Alberta impacted by either wildfire alone, timber harvesting alone, MPB outbreak alone or MPB outbreak plus timber harvesting will serve as fungal inoculum for the experiment. In order to determine if fungal community composition is an important factor in Lodgepole pine regeneration on disturbed sites this work will investigate one primary research objective: determine if seedlings grow differently when inoculated with fungi form different disturbed sites. The results of this study indicate that seedling biomass, nitrogen composition, phosphorus composition and the allocation of carbon to ECM1, ECM2, ECM3 and UNID1 fungal OTUs vary depending on disturbance treatment. In addition, the results of of this study also indicated that increased carbon allocation to fungal OTUs ECM1 and ECM3 was positively correlated to increased seedling biomass, nitrogen and phosphorus composition. As well as increased carbon allocation to ECM2 was negatively correlated with seedling biomass, nitrogen and phosphorus. Control sites had the highest biomass, nitrogen and phosphorus levels followed by Logging, fire, Mountain Pine Beetle and Mountain Pine Beetle plus logging disturbed sites. These results stress the importance of ectomycorrhizal fungal communities' role in seedling success. Furthermore, these results suggest that fungal community composition is an important factor influencing not only the allocation of seedling carbon but also seedling biomass, nitrogen and phosphorus composition which are important factors in the regeneration of lodgepole pine on disturbed sites.
Image 1 (Above): Site disturbed Mountain Pine Beetle in northwest Alberta.
Images Cited:
- Image 1: courtesy of Jean Carlo Rodriguez Ramos