Sibylle Lustenberger passes her Master's exam
Congratulations to Sibylle Lustenberger in passing her Master's exam on Thursday March 28th.
Dependency on water availability of belowground carbon trading symmetry in a common mycorrhizal network
In her thesis, Sibylle addressed the relationship between carbon investment into mycorrhizal fungi and nutrient returns for two plants that are both associated with the same fungal partner. She could show that no relationship exists between the magnitude of the carbon investment of a species and the corresponding nutrient return. In contrast, the species that invested very little carbon towards the mycorrhizal partner received the largest nutrient returns and the species that invested the highest amount of carbon receives the lowest nutrient returns. Most interestingly, this asymmetric relationship between carbon investment into a common mycorrhizal network and nutrient return was a function of the environment and shifted towards a more balanced investment and return relationship under unfavorable (drought) conditions.
Congratulations Sibylle for this great work!