Scope
Mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic associations with the majority of plants and play a key role in almost all ecosystems. Major gaps in our understanding of the symbiosis between plants and mycorrhizal fungi have been addressed in recent years, but at the same time there are still several pressing questions to be resolved. These include: (1) Which traits can be used to characterize functional diversity in mycorrhizas and is it possible to link functional diversity to ecosystem functioning? (2) How are mycorrhizal networks organized, how do they function and how do plants interact with multiple partners and symbionts? (3) How are fluxes of carbon and nutrients between partners regulated and how are signals exchanged? (4) What is the role of mycorrhizas in soil food webs and what controls the dynamics of mycorrhizal fungal populations in space and time? (5) What is the mycorrhizal contribution to the sustainability of ecosystems and can mycorrhizal fungi be used for sustainable plant production? New tools and concepts are required to answer these questions.
In this symposium, we will bring together a wide range of scientists from different disciplines working on mycorrhizal fungi and plant-microbe interactions. We aim to provide an overview of the advances in mycorrhizal ecology in the last decade. In addition to this, specific talks will highlight new research areas and address the big questions for future research.
Meeting report
A meeting report entitled 'Mycorrhizas: dynamic and complex networks of power and influence' written by Franz Bender, Rafael Valadares and Adrien Taudiere was published in issue 204:1 of New Phytologist and can be read for free here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.12991/full.
A Special Issue (Vol. 205 No. 4) of New Phytologist on Ecology and evolution of mycorrhizas is now available online. You can read the Editorial by Dickie et al. Evolving insights to understanding mycorrhizas, which introduces the Special Issue or see the issue's table of contents here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.2015.205.issue-4/issuetoc.
Organising committee
Prof. Marcel van der Heijden, Plant-Soil Interactions Group, Agroscope, Zurich
Prof. Francis Martin, Laboratory of Excellence ARBRE, INRA, Nancy
Prof. Ian Sanders, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne
Prof. Marc-André Selosse, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris