Plant productivity, diversity and c

Plant productivity, diversity and community compositionPlant community composition of the grassland communities depended strongly on the presence or absence of both symbionts (Figure 1a) and the different plant functional groups (grasses, herbs and legumes) responded differentially to the treatments. The grasses produced the majority of the biomass in the microcosms when AM fungi were absent. In contrast, herbs and legumes dominated the microcosms where AM fungi were present. The total productivity of the microcosms (shoot and roots combined) varied only little between the treatments (Figure 1a) while the interaction of AM fungi and rhizobia affected the plant productivity positively