Mycorrhizal strategy of non-native plants varies with biome and disturbance

Sara Giulia Cazzaniga; Thomas Lauber; Johan van den Hoogen; Evelyn M Beaury; C Guillermo Bueno; James D Bever; Gabriella Damasceno; Jane Catford; Jonathan Lenoir; Adam Martin; See full text for complete author listing; Sharif A Mukul

doi:10.1038/s41559-026-03144-9

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Mycorrhizal strategy of non-native plants varies with biome and disturbance

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Mycorrhizal strategy of non-native plants varies with biome and disturbance

Sara Giulia Cazzaniga, Thomas Lauber, Johan van den Hoogen, Evelyn M Beaury, C Guillermo Bueno, James D Bever, Gabriella Damasceno, Jane Catford, Jonathan Lenoir, Adam Martin, …

Nature Ecology & Evolution, Vol.10(9), pp.1644-1657

2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03144-9

PMCID: PMC13541620

PMID: 42608551

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Abstract

Biodiversity

Ecosystem

Introduced Species

Mycorrhizae - physiology

Plants - microbiology

Symbiosis

Predicting which non-native plant species will become established and where is critical for conserving and managing biodiversity. Theory suggests that the mycorrhizal strategy of non-native plants may predict their establishment success. Here we combine a global dataset of 440,788 vegetation plots with data on plant native status and mycorrhizal type to assess mycorrhizal strategy of non-native plants. The mycorrhizal strategy of non-native plants varies strongly across biomes. Across grassland and desert biomes, non-native species are more frequently non-mycorrhizal than native species, whereas in other biomes non-native species are more likely to be mycorrhizal, most commonly arbuscular-mycorrhizal. Disturbance type and intensity are key predictors of mycorrhizal strategy of non-native species, as mycorrhizal species are favoured by landscape modification and non-mycorrhizal species by natural and human-caused disturbance events. Facultatively mycorrhizal species are consistently under-represented among non-native plants compared with natives, suggesting that symbiotic flexibility does not confer an advantage for non-natives as previously expected. Our study shows that non-native mycorrhizal strategy varies across biogeographical contexts and disturbance, highlighting the need for region-specific prevention and management approaches to plant species introductions.

Details

Title: Mycorrhizal strategy of non-native plants varies with biome and disturbance
Authors: Sara Giulia Cazzaniga - SystemsX.ch
Thomas Lauber - ETH Zurich
Johan van den Hoogen - ETH Zurich
Evelyn M Beaury - New York Botanical Garden
C Guillermo Bueno - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
James D Bever - University of Kansas
Gabriella Damasceno - German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research
Jane Catford - King's College London
Jonathan Lenoir - Université de Picardie Jules Verne
Adam Martin - University of Toronto
See full text for complete author listing
Sharif A Mukul (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast
Publication details: Nature Ecology & Evolution, Vol.10(9), pp.1644-1657
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
Date published: 2026
DOI: 10.1038/s41559-026-03144-9
ISSN: 2397-334X
PMID: 42608551; PMC13541620
Copyright note: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2026, modified publication 2026
Data Availability: The preprocessed dataset is available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.20123479 (ref. 94). Coordinates of the plots have been modified to protect the precise location of the surveyed plots. Source data are provided with this paper.
Grant note: sPlot is a strategic project from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig (iDiv) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG FZT 118, 202548816). This work was supported by a Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (TMPFP3_209925, CSD; TMPFP2_217531, F.G.), European Union ERC starting grant (FutureNature 101076837, K.V.M.), the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF173, J.-C.S.), grant ANID PIA/BASAL FB210006 and FONDECYT 1240874 (AG.G.) and Research Grants 25-15727S of the Czech Science Foundation, LUAUS26250 (programme INTER-EXCELLENCE, subprogramme INTER-ACTION) provided by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, and long-term research development project RVO 67985939 of the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
Organisation Unit: Tropical Forests and People Research Centre
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991258095902621
Output Type: Journal article

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