Carboxylate release as a nutrient-acquisition strategy in mycorrhizal plant species in phosphorus-impoverished environments

Plants acquire phosphorus (P) in different ways, including using specialised root structures such as cluster roots and mycorrhizal symbioses. However, mycorrhizal fungi are less effective at acquiring P from severely P-impoverished soils; yet many mycorrhizal plants thrive in such environments. Hence, we studied what nutrient-acquisition and -utilisation strategies allow these species to persist in these habitats. We chose 19 species (from mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal families) from P-impoverished environments in south-western Australia. Leaf element concentrations, including P, nitrogen (N), and manganese (Mn), as well as N and carbon (C) stable isotopes, were measured to explore the likely nutrient-acquisition and -utilisation strategies. Leaf Mn concentrations ([Mn]) were used as a proxy for carboxylates released by roots. Subsequently, glasshouse experiments were conducted to measure the root carboxylate release of seedlings of the selected species grown in nutrient solutions.&nb..., , # Carboxylate release as a nutrient-acquisition strategy in mycorrhizal plant species in phosphorus-impoverished environments

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.866t1g21z](10.5061/dryad.866t1g21z)

## Description of the data and file structure

File: Nutrient_in_leaves.xlsx

Description: The Nutrient in leaves data included all the total elements and isotopes that we measrued in the experiment, and these samples are from wild experiments. Each plant species at each site have at least five replicates. All the units, plant species and sampling site information are in the excel. 

* Species - the plant species name that we collected at each sampling location
* Location - sampling location for each of the samples
* ID_number - Sampling number for our experiment
* Replicate - replicate for each of the sampling species
* Al mg/kg -  Aluminium concentration in leaf samples, with unit mg/kg
* Ca mg/g - calcium concentration in leaf samples, with unit mg/g
* Co mg/kg - cobalt concentration in leaf sam...,