Modern Climate-Controlled Plant Growth Experiments Exploring the Microbial Drivers of Terrestrial Vegetation Succession after the Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction
Xu Zhen
Yu Jianxin
Peng Nian
Chi Hongfei
Han Mingxian
Lin Wenjie
Jiang Hongchen
Abstract：Plants enhance their nutrient and water uptake and improve resilience to extreme climates through mutualism with microorganisms,including mycorrhizal fungi and nitrogen-fixing bacteria.Despite the ecological significance of plant-microbe interactions,direct evidence of such symbioses during critical climate transitions in Earth's history remains limited due to the lack of relevant fossil records.This study adopts a modern-analogue approach,focusing on extant relatives of plants that survived the Permian-Triassic mass extinction,including Araucaria heterophylla,Cycas revoluta,and Ginkgo biloba.Using artificial climate chambers with temperature gradients,these plants were cultivated for one year,and high-throughput amplicon sequencing was employed to analyse the composition and relative abundance of root-associated microbial communities.The findings were then compared to plant fossil evidence to explore the impact of plant-microbe symbioses on plant survival under the extreme greenhouse climates of the Triassic.Preliminary results indicate that increasing the temperature by 10 ℃ above 25℃ resulted in a higher relative abundance ratio of beneficial and harmful microorganisms in the rhizosphere of Araucaria compared to Cycas and Ginkgo.This may explain why coniferous plants like Araucaria became dominant during the high-temperature conditions of the Early Triassic.However,at lower temperatures(30 ℃ and 25℃),the microbial communities associated with Cycas and Ginkgo exhibited greater adaptive advantages,consistent with their later dominance in cooler Late Triassic and post-Triassic ecosystems.This study provides microbial-based insights into the mechanisms by which plants adapted to extreme greenhouse climates following the Permian-Triassic mass extinction and contributes valuable data for understanding deep-time plant-microbe-environment interactions.
Keywords：arbuscular mycorrhiza(AM)ectotrophic mycorrhiza(EcM)plant fossil recordsAraucaria heterophyllaCycas revoluteGinkgo bilobahigh throughput sequencing technologygreenhouse effectclimate change
Publication Date：2025-03-14
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：17( 934-950 )