A framework for predicting the dynamics of plant-mycorrhizal interactions

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 1 of this Preprint. You must log in to post a comment. There are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article. This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 1 of this Preprint. Add a Comment You must log in to post a comment. Comments There are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article. Interactions between plants and mycorrhizal fungi shape nutrient cycling and ecosystem function on a global scale, but the dynamics of these interactions remain poorly understood. Due to their below-ground nature, directly observing key dynamical features such as Allee effects and oscillations is often not possible, hampering further progress in this area. Here we present a mechanistic model of plant-mycorrhizal interactions to address this issue. By integrating the facilitative and the antagonistic elements of plant-mycorrhizal interactions with explicit plant-nutrient dynamics, our framework generates testable predictions about the dynamics and persistence of these interactions. We find that plant-mycorrhizal interactions can exhibit different dynamical realms ranging from Allee effects to consumer-resource oscillations, and that these dynamics can be inferred from measurable system parameters (e.g., nutrient or carbohydrate uptake rates and saturation constants) and plant/fungal biomasses. Furthermore, we find that changes in the underlying soil nutrient supply can induce changes from one dynamical realm to another. Finally, we present a decision tree framework for characterizing the dynamics of real systems and discuss implications of our findings for plant-mycorrhizal communities in applied and natural contexts. https://doi.org/10.32942/X2NQ14 Life Sciences mycorrhizae, mutualism, Species Interactions, Mechanistic model, population dynamics, nutrient limitation Published: 2026-01-23 18:54 Last Updated: 2026-01-23 18:54 CC BY Attribution 4.0 International Conflict of interest statement: None Data and Code Availability Statement: Simulation code and data are publicly available under Supplementary Files Language: English