Manjeet Dhull

New Article: "Arbuscular mycorrhizal association regulates global root–seed coordination" rdcu.be/eBmpX

Global positive correlation between root diameter and seed size, driven by dual roles of arbuscular mycorrhiza in phosphorus uptake and pathogen defence.

Seven years later: native AMF inoculation improves grassland successional stage, floristic quality index, and diversity, while suppressing weeds Native mycorrhizal fungi enhance prairie restoration by boosting native plant diversity, supporting late-successional species, and reducing invasive plants

My new paper is out! 🧪🦠

Seven years later: native AMF inoculation improves grassland restoration successional stage, floristic quality index, and diversity, while suppressing weeds: academic.oup.com/femsle/artic...

Why microbes matter in restoration 🧵

Plant-associated fungi co-opt ancient antimicrobials for host manipulation Evolutionary histories of effector proteins secreted by fungal pathogens to mediate plant colonization remain largely elusive. While most functionally characterized effectors modulate plant immunity, ...

📣 NEW PREPRINT 📝

We identified evolutionary origins of many fungal effectors!
We show that fungi secrete lots of antimicrobial proteins, and that some of them were repurposed by plant pathogens for host immune suppression.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

cc @teamthomma.bsky.social

A Causal Inference Framework for Climate Change Attribution in Ecology Accurately attributing ecological shifts to climate change remains a significant challenge. Here, we present an accessible causal inference framework designed for climate change attribution in observ...

Really excited to share our new paper on #causalinference & #climatechange attribution out in #EcologyLetters today!

Are you asking "how much" or "if" climate change has impacted your system, then this paper is for you!

🧪🌏🌐🍁🌺🌱🌿
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Research landscape of experiments on global change effects on mycorrhizas Click on the article title to read more.

Paper just out by Lehmann et al.

Research landscape of experiments on global change effects on mycorrhizas

A systematic mapping of all experiments on this topic...collaboration of several postdocs and BSc students in the lab.

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A diverse and distinct microbiome inside living trees - Nature Microbiome analyses of living trees show that a single tree can host approximately one trillion bacteria, with microbial communities distinctly partitioned between heartwood and sapwood and with minim...

One single tree can host up to 1 trillion bacteria on its wood. The hyphosphere microbiome seems to be fundamental for mycorrhizal functioning.

I see things like this and wonder, how some colleagues still doubt about #Holobionts being units of selection?

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Mechanisms that potentially contribute to the maintenance of interactions between bacteria, ectomycorrhizal fungi (EcMF), and land trees across varied developmental periods.

“…when organisms interact can largely determine how they interact.”

#Viewpoint: Is it all about timing? Identifying the symbiosis critical points that govern interactions among #bacteria, ectomycorrhizal #fungi, and land #trees

By Louis Berrios 👇

📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Ly et al. 2025 - Plants, fungi, and antifungals: A little less talk, a little more action @plos.org

journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

An army beneath the roots: how native diversity, nutrients, and invader density shape microbial defenses against plant invasion Haokun Li, Yizhuo Deng, Shuwei Zhang, Jeremy Greenberg, Danli Chen, Xiulin Song, Xinze Geng, Yanhui Zhuge, Chongwei Li, Guangyan Ni, Yuping Hou This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecol…

📰Published📰 An army beneath the roots: how native diversity, nutrients, and invader density shape microbial defenses against plant invasion🌱

buff.ly/4zl9FgI

🧪🌍

Concurrent common fungal networks formed by different guilds of fungi Click on the article title to read more.

The final version is out in @newphyt.bsky.social

Concurrent common fungal networks formed by different guilds of fungi

I wonder if we will see more research on common fungal networks formed by other fungi...

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Our paper mapping plant and mycorrhizal fungal diversity correlations is out! Relationships are weak at the global level, but both positive and negative at smaller scales. Plants are not always proxies for fungi — fungi need their own conservation focus @spun.earth @ethz.ch
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

How climate shapes soil fungal traits Many soil microbes play a vital role in ecosystems, as they help plants access nutrients and water and assist in stress tolerance such as during drought and to defend against pathogens. One such group...

Our new global study led by @smriti-pehim-limbu.bsky.social is now out in @pnas.org. TLDR: Certain spore traits were linked to climate AND species range sizes! YES we can use traits to gain insight into env adaptations for microbes.

#mycorrhizas #spores #NSFfunded
www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

2.8 billion mycorrhizal DNA sequences, 130 countries, one global map.

Explore Underground Atlas at buff.ly/ovvwQ7W and watch our full-length explainer on YouTube for a behind the scenes look into our research: buff.ly/FEvCQwm

Most of Earth’s critical underground fungus is unprotected First global map of mushrooms that form beneficial relationships with plant roots reveals 90% live outside of conservation areas

More than 90% of the planet’s below-the-surface fungi are not found in protected parts of the globe, according to a new study. scim.ag/3J0uwJ9

Who lives underground?

Find out now in our new paper published in @nature.com.

Key finding: 90% of predicted mycorrhizal biodiversity hotspots lie outside protected areas.

Read here: buff.ly/WmDqAP3 🧵

Diverging soil peroxidase activity under ectomycorrhizal versus arbuscular mycorrhizal conifers with increasing C:N and exchangeable manganese Ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi purportedly contribute to the enzymatic decay of soil organic matter (SOM), in contrast to arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) stan…

Lots of intriguing results with this new study by Kranabetter et al. including that ‘Peroxidase activity under an EM host was low and equivalent to an AM host on more productive sites and only diverged with increasingly limited soil fertility’

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Intense farming weighs heavily on soil quality! 🌱
Meet arbuscular mycorrhizal #fungi (AMF)🍄, symbionts that help plants acquire nutrients.
Rog et al. explore which soils benefit most from AMF in #FEMSMicrobiolLett.
@idorog.bsky.social @steffilutz.bsky.social @sfbender.bsky.social

buff.ly/tblsBb1

AusAMF: The Database of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungal Communities in Australia Motivation Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are central to plant nutrient acquisition, soil carbon dynamics, and ecosystem resilience. Yet, their biogeography remains incompletely characterised, pa...

The database of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in Australia is out!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

You can access data summaries via the website www.ausamf.com

We have data from 610 sites with data from another 500 locations to be added by the end of the year!

Thanks to all collaborators

Great to see this mammoth effort by
@frewecologist.bsky.social et al finally published!

AusAMF: The Database of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungal Communities in Australia - Frew - 2025 - Global Ecology and Biogeography - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Annual grass invasion is associated with differences in the community structure and abundance of biocrusts and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi Abstract. Interactions between biocrusts and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi may increase plant resilience to environmental stress in native grasslands.

New paper out from the Cheeke Lab led by @raeberner.bsky.social with @balachaudhary.bsky.social & Geoff Zahn. Congrats Rae!
academic.oup.com/femsle/advan...

Harnessing arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities for ecological restoration: a conceptual framework Harnessing plant-beneficial microbes, such as arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, holds great potential as a nature-based solution for ecological resto…

New paper out in SBB:

Harnessing arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities for ecological restoration: a conceptual framework

Nice collaboration with the lab of Baodong Chen, including first author and current postdoc in our group in Berlin, Wei.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Origin matters: mycorrhizal growth response and induced resistance to pathogens depend on mycorrhizal and pathogen source Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are critical to native plant community ecology and influence plant invasions. Research has focused on nutritional benefits of AMF, although evidence shows that the...

Check out our new paper: Origin matters: mycorrhizal growth response and induced resistance to pathogens depend on mycorrhizal and pathogen source, where we show that mycorrhizal induced resistance occurs within native plant species 🌱 @newphyt.bsky.social

Connecting the dots: Network structure as a functional trait in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi Soil health and sustainable land management are critical to addressing global challenges such as food security, climate resilience, and biodiversity loss. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi form under...

New paper out! @plantspeopleplanet.bsky.social
Led by @aguilart.bsky.social

We argue mycelial network connectivity can define functional groups of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. We explore how different fungi balance efficiency vs. resilience.

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and Their Role in Plant Disease Control: A State-of-the-Art - ScienceDirect •AMF suppress plant diseases by enhancing plant immunity and competing with pathogens. •AMF trigger Induced Systemic Resistance (ISR), strengthening plant defenses against infections. •AMF improve soil microbiome diversity, creating an unfavorable environment for pathogens. •AMF act as natural biocontrol agents, reducing the need for chemical pesticides. •Integrating AMF into biocontrol strategies supports sustainable disease management.

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and Their Role in Plant Disease Control: A State-of-the-Art - ScienceDirect

Spent last week at the microscope 🔬✨, and seeing arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi up close for the first time—hyphae, arbuscules, vesicles—was absolutely mind-blowing. Small but mighty partners of plant roots 🌿. Sharing a few of my favourite shots.
#Mycorrhiza #fungi

1/🚨 New preprint alert! Can mutualists and pathogens co-colonise the same living plant cell and what does that do to the plant membranes that surround these microbes?

What does colonisation tell us? Revisiting the functional outcomes of root colonisation by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi Click on the article title to read more.

We often measure AM fungal colonisation assuming it tells us something about function. But… what does it tell us?

A short Letter where I ask what root colonisation really means for plant growth, P uptake, and defence.
#Mycorrhiza #fungi #plantmicrobiome
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...