Mycorrhizal acquisition
Mycorrhizal acquisition is the process through which arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi explore and exploit the soil to take up nutrients. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi have dual niches, living partly in plant roots and partly in the soil. The nutrients that they take up are exchanged with their host plant for carbon fixed from the atmosphere. As mycorrhizal hyphae explore a larger volume of soil than plants, this exchange can boost plant nutrition especially for nutrients with limited mobility in soil such as phosphorus but also zinc or copper.
Mycorrhizal acquisition is part of the Nutrient cycling model because it moves nutrients from the soil to plant roots and aboveground. Indirectly, it is also considered under food web assimilation and root foraging in the Water regulation and purification and Carbon and climate regulation models. In the Carbon and climate regulation model, the emphasis is put on the transfer of carbon fixed by plants to the mycorrhizal fungi belowground.
Capturing the process of mycorrhizal acquisition requires advanced methods. Instead, the root colonization, abundance in soil, hyphal length or other traits of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are measured instead, which are described in more detail on the mycorrhizae page.