Aim Achlorophyllous mycoheterotrophic plants and mycorrhizal fungi often have highly specific interactions that potentially limit the plants’ distribution and diversification potential. However, specificity in biotic interactions may differ considerably over a species’ distribution range and therefore interactions need to be studied over their entire range to assess their evolution in space and time. The present study investig...

Aim Many plant families have a disjunct distribution across the southern Pacific Ocean, including the mycoheterotrophic family Corsiaceae, which provides a prime example of this biogeographical pattern. A better grasp of the family's evolutionary relationships is needed to understand its historical biogeography. We therefore aimed to (1) test the uncertain monophyly of Corsiaceae, (2) define its phylogenetic position, and (3)...

The majority of achlorophyllous mycoheterotrophic plant species associate with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). Previous studies have shown that some species are highly specialized towards narrow lineages of AMF and have suggested that only particular lineages of these fungi are targeted by mycoheterotrophic plants. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed all available partial SSU sequences of AMF associated with mycoheterotro...

Summary Despite their role in soil functioning, the ecology of nitrite‐oxidizing bacteria, NOB, and their response to disturbances such as those generated by agricultural practices are scarcely known. Over the course of 17 months, we surveyed the potential nitrite oxidation, PNO, the abundance of the Nitrobacter ‐ and Nitrospira ‐like NOB (by quantitative PCR) and the community structure of the Nitrobacter ‐like NOB (by PCR‐DG...