Factors influencing successful establishment of exotic seedlings with co-introduced or local ectomycorrhizal fungal communities.

An introduction of exotic or non-native trees may fail due to a lack of suitable fungal partners. We planted exotic in Xifeng, Guizhou Southwest China. Strategies to introduce seedlings either colonized with an ectomycorrhizal fungus (EcMF), , or expect them to form familiar/new associations with local EcMF in a new habitat were studied to know how could be successfully established over a period of 2.5 years. Plant height and needle nutrient acquisition, the persistence of the co-introduced . , and fungal community composition in rhizosphere soil and root tips were analyzed. In addition, a greenhouse bioassay experiment of local soil to assess the differences in the EcMF community between exotic and native pine seedlings was also conducted. The current results demonstrated that could establish in the Xifeng plantation with or without co-introduced . The co-introduced . might be naturalized with in the new area since it has been fruited for 2 years with high relative abundance in mycorrhizosphere soil. pre-colonization significantly altered the mycorrhizosphere fungal composition and it had a positive correlation with nitrogen acquisition of Host identity had no effect on fungal composition since exotic and native recruited similar local fungal communities in early establishment or in plantation. The cosmopolitan species , with high relative abundance, formed a familiar association with . The greenhouse bioassay experiment further showed that sp. contributed relatively higher total extracellular enzymes by forming ectomycorrhizas with and the same type of ectomycorrhiza of and showed different enzymatic functions. Our study indicated that exotic could be a suitable tree capable to get established successfully in the Xifeng plantation either by interaction with the co-introduced or with a local EcMF, but we should be cautious about large-scale planting of . persisted in plantation and more attention should be paid to local EcMF community changes induced by the introduced .