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Does Fungal Endophyte Infection Improve Tall Fescue’S Growth Response To Fire And Water Limitation?, Sarah L. Hall, Rebecca L. Mcculley, Robert J. Barney, Timothy D. Phillips

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Invasive species may owe some of their success in competing and co-existing with native species to microbial symbioses they are capable of forming. Tall fescue is a cool-season, non-native, invasive grass capable of co-existing with native warm-season grasses in North American grasslands that frequently experience fire, drought, and cold winters, conditions to which the native species should be better-adapted than tall fescue. We hypothesized that tall fescue’s ability to form a symbiosis with Neotyphodium coenophialum, an aboveground fungal endophyte, may enhance its environmental stress tolerance and persistence in these environments. We used a greenhouse experiment to examine the effects …