ABSTRACT
Faunal grazing on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal extraradical hyphae has been shown to reduce the efficiency of the mycorrhizae in acquiring nutrients, particularly phosphorous, for the plant. Warnock et al. (1982) showed that there was a strong interaction between collembolan density and the growth of the host plant. The effect of this grazing is likely to be more important in agroecosystems, in which the diversity of soil fauna is reduced and high densities of collembola can occur in the absence of predators. In addition it has been shown that nematode feeding on mycorrhizal fungal hyphae can also reduce the effectiveness of the mycorrhizal association and has the effect of altering a plant’s competitive fitness (Brussard et al., 2001).
