Fig 1.

Schematic of the experimental design. The precultivation stage rendered the substrate colonized by a synthetic community of three arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal isolates (AMF substrate) and sterilized substrate without AMF background (control substrate). Each treatment of the experiment is represented by one small pot in the lower part of the diagram. Besides noninoculated treatments (empty pots), each of the three isolates of the community was inoculated with 150 IP (middle-sized geometric symbols). Additionally, the G. claroideum and G. intraradices pots were inoculated with 400 IP (large circles and triangles) and the G. mosseae isolate was inoculated with 20 IP (small squares). For specification of the isolates, see Materials and Methods.