Life Sciences Commons^™

Ectomycorrhizal Fungal Succession In A Native Monterey Pine Forest And Its Potential Influence Upon Forest Population Dynamics, Kristopher Jordan Hennig

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ectomycorrhizal fungi are plant symbionts influential to the growth and survival of many plant species found within forest ecosystems throughout the globe. The succession of ectomycorrhizal communities during forest maturation has been observed in a number of systems; however, though it is generally assumed that this process is important for forest dynamics, we do not fully understand the causes of succession and whether it strongly influences metrics of plant population dynamics such as population growth rates or size class structure. I studied a secondary successional chronosequence to test the hypothesis that ectomycorrhizal fungal succession occurs within a native Monterey pine …