Happy to share this work co-authored with Ylva Lekberg and Jonathan Plett. In a world plagued by war and environmental destruction, research into how mycorrhizal fungi can advance the UN sustainability goals might seem irrelevant. It is not.
academic.oup.com/femsle/advan...
New paper out today - Microplastic fibers, not bulkier shapes, disrupt soil carbon cycling, cutting CO₂ emissions ~25%. Grateful for the collaboration with lead author Serra-Willow Buchanan and Marie Sauvadet, Ryan Prosser and Kari Dunfield.
doi.org/10.1093/etoj...
Illustration of a simple allelopathy model that considers the ith individual of an invasive species and the jth individual of a native competitor, such as the North American invasive plant Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard), shown on the left, and the native Acer saccharum (sugar maple), on the right.
#Viewpoint: A critical reassessment of the novel weapons hypothesis and allelopathy as an adaptive strategy that facilitates #PlantInvasion
Robert Colautti & Pedro Madeira Antunes
👇
📖 nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
#LatestIssue #PlantScience
Experimental approaches and key outcomes supporting the Allelopathy Postulates relevant to competitive interactions and the novel weapons hypothesis (NWH). Numbers in red correspond to the 11 postulates summarized in Table 1. The full experimental framework comprises five sequential steps: (a) assess the natural concentrations of a potential allelopathic compound; (b) demonstrate its ability to suppress native vegetation; releasing resources that enhance growth and reproduction of the invader (e.g. light, nutrients, water); (c) confirm that the compound has limited autotoxicity to the invading species; (d) investigate the biogeographical basis of the allelopathic compound as a ‘novel weapon’ by demonstrating that native communities coevolving with the invader in its home range are significantly more resistant to the allelopathic compound compared to those in the introduced (away) range; (e) confirm that genotypes producing higher concentrations of the allelopathic compounds experience a fitness cost in the context of intraspecific competition but gain a fitness advantage under interspecific competition. Investigating the role of soil-mediated interactions (11) is transversal across different components of the framework
Now published in @newphyt.bsky.social, @1pantunes.bsky.social and I review evidence for the "Novel Weapons Hypothesis" and the role of allelopathy during invasion. Bottom line: there is very good reason to be skeptical.
dx.doi.org/10.1111/nph....
Nice photo and this is fantastic. Congrats César and Nancy!
The many hours I spent idealizing and drawing this diagram for this review paper are condensed into 25 seconds here. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
The many hours spent idealizing and drawing this diagram for this review paper are condensed into 25 seconds here. nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
In organisms like mycorrhizal fungi, fluid mechanics may be unique as it may extend across Kingdoms of life, between plants & fungi. Who knows if what we learn from these organisms can help us build more efficient pipelines and other human-made fluid transport systems…
I hope this work sparks new trait-based research that contributes to our understanding of how vascular systems can function and evolve.
Why does this matter? Because flow through mycorrhizal networks influences:
How plants share or compete for resources
How ecosystems respond to stress and store C
The balance between cooperation and competition in mycorrhizal symbioses and plants
Linking biology, ecology and physics (Fluid mechanics) gives us traits to measure mycorrhizal network transport efficiency, resilience, and trade-offs in ways biology alone couldn’t.
Mycorrhizal fungi form networks that connect plants and contribute to shaping plant diversity and ecosystem functioning.
These networks function like a vascular system, but we’ve barely scratched the surface of understanding how they work.
New paper out today. Fluid mechanics within mycorrhizal networks: exploring concepts, traits, and methodologies
I ask: How do fungal networks move water, nutrients and signals underground?
Why does this matter? See thread ⬇️
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
New paper: ‘Soil inoculation improves tree seedling growth in substrates containing bitumen, but the effect varies by species and inoculum source’ led by James Franklin @jamesfranklin, a past PhD from my group. 🧵
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Thanks James Franklin, @1pantunes.bsky.social and Brian Lanoil for a great collaboration!
Pleated inkcap (Parasola plicatilis) fruiting bodies rise, spread their spores and decay within 24 hours after a rainfall. They are very small and delicate. These middle-aged ones (7-10 hours old) were around our field today.
Important to be aware.
The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
If you belong to an organization committed to biodiversity and the environment, consider sponsoring the International Conference on Mycorrhiza. More than an excellent program, the organizers have an impressive sustainability strategy. See sponsor packages: icom2026.org#goto-sponsor
Our new newsletter is now published!
Dig into the latest updates on IMS’s 20th anniversary, ICOM2026 preparations, our new website & logo, top 10 research papers, and upcoming events. Read more at mycorrhizas.org/news. Stay connected! #Mycorrhiza
Why this matters:
Previous research has primarily focused on how periwinkle suppresses native plants.
Our study reveals that its impact extends below ground, affecting soil invertebrates, which influence decomposition rates and nutrient cycling, potentially affecting the overall forest health.
The study provides the first piece of evidence that invasion by Common Periwinkle (Vinca minor), an ornamental that people love to put in their gardens but escapes into natural forests, significantly alters soil invertebrate communities in invaded habitats.
The latest research from our lab is out today—a collaboration with @carlosbarreto.bsky.social, and students Gabrielle Faucher and Katja Karhi.
Lesser periwinkle (Vinca minor L.) invasion alters the composition of ... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Very happy to announce the very first M.Sc. in Biology thesis defence @algomau.bsky.social . This moment marks a transformative milestone in scientific research, placing our school on the map as a rising hub for advanced knowledge and discovery.
The takeaway? The NWH needs stronger, more reproducible evidence to move beyond being a metaphor.
We introduce 11 "Allelopathy Postulates" (like Koch’s postulates in disease ecology) to rigorously test allelopathy as a causal, adaptive strategy. Most published studies don’t pass even half of them.
- Only 1 (Honor et al. 2025) tested the key trade-off predicted by NWH that allelochemicals help in interspecific but not in intraspecific competition, finding no support
- Most ignored field validation
- Many used extracts, not isolated compounds
Most published NWH studies fail to meet these criteria. In a systematic review of 41 empirical studies, we found 👇:
We propose a simple eco-evolutionary model showing that for allelopathy to be adaptive:
✅ It must suppress competitors
✅ Increase invader fitness
✅ Have low autotoxicity
✅ Be cost-effective energetically
We revisit Harper’s 1975 critiques: Allelopathy studies often rely on lab assays with unrealistic doses, ignore alternative explanations (e.g. pathogens, nutrient shifts), and rarely test for actual fitness benefits.
