Species-level mycorrhizal colonization patterns along with increasing altitude may
differ from the community-level change from a mycorrhizal to a non-mycorrhizal plant
community. This is probably related to different altitudinal distributions of the plant
species, microtopography and the species-specific dependency on mycorrhizal symbiosis.
The fungal symbionts and their relative abundance in the roots may also change with the
increasing altitude.
Several factors may not favour mycorrhizal symbiosis in high-alpine conditions. This
suggests that the performance of mycorrhizal plants would decline along the alpine
gradient relative to non-mycorrhizal plants, which was hypothesized. However, it appears
that the rate of the decline may not be constant along with the altitude and mycorrhizal
plants may perform, in average, relatively well at lower altitudes but in the transition to
high-alpine conditions the advantage of mycorrhizal symbiosis may drop. Consequently,
declining mycorrhizal colonizations and lower performance of mycorrhizal plants
compared to non-mycorrhizal plants may not be primarily due to changes in individual
plant ecophysiology and photosynthesis but are also affected by plant and fungal