Effects of soil phosphorus, light, AMF and jasmonic acid on growth and defense of Plantago lanceolata

This dataset contains data from a two-part greenhouse experiments described in the paper: “Qu, L., Wang, M., and Biere, A. (2021) Interactive effects of Mycorrhizae, Soil Phosphorus and Light on Growth and Induction and Priming of Defense in Plantago lanceolata. Frontiers in Plant Science 12: 647372”.

The experiment investigates the effects of a factorial combination of three factors: inoculation with AMF (the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Funneliformis mosseae; yes/no), soil phosphorus level (Soil P, 10.5 vs. 105 mg P/kg soil), and light intensity (15% vs. 50% shade), on growth and defense of ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata).

In the first experiment (“Sequential harvests”), the effect of these three factors is studied on plant biomass accumulation and allocation, shoot and root morphology, and biochemistry at four consecutive harvests, 3, 6, 9, and 12 weeks after seedling transplantation.

In the second experiment (“Bioassays”), detached leaves of plants grown under a factorial combination of the abovementioned three factors are offered to caterpillars of the noctuid Mamestra bassicae at two time points (7 weeks and 10 weeks after seedling transplantation) to study the amount of leaf area and weight eaten by caterpillars and the amount of biomass accumulated by caterpillars during short bioassays. Two days before the bioassays plants were treated with jasmonic acid (JA, 0.5 ml of a 9.5 mM solution) or a mock treatment to study whether the three factors described above influence the extend to which the plant’s and caterpillar’s respond to the JA treatment (JA-induced defense).

Main results of the experiments are that (1) AMF reduces biomass production, the strength depending on light and soil P conditions; (2) JA application induces resistance to M. brassicae, its extent being independent of light and soil P conditions; (3) in younger plants, JA-induced resistance is repressed by AMF under high resource conditions; (4) in older plants, low soil P and light enhance susceptibility to M. brassicae due to enhanced leaf nitrogen levels and reduced leaf levels of the defense metabolite catalpol.