Nahuel PolicelliNational Scientific and Technical Research Council | conicet · IPEEC CENPAT
Nahuel Policelli
Biologist - PhD
Instituto Patagónico para el Estudio de los Ecosistemas Continentales (IPEEC) - CONICET, Argentina
About
20
Publications
13,126
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Introduction
Nahuel Policelli does research in microbial ecology, with a focus on mycorrhizal fungi and plants. Most of the projects in which he is involved study how belowground biota can facilitate or hinder plants invasion. Other interests include restoration ecology, invasion biology, plant ecology and taxonomy, fungal physiology, and fire ecology.
Additional affiliations
January 2020 - December 2022
Position
- PostDoc Position
Description
- Soil microbes' invasion; microbial interactions and their impact on terrestrial biogeochemistry
April 2013 - December 2014
Position
- Student
Description
- Evaluation of the effect of prescribed fire as a restoration technique in El Palmar National Park, Entre Rìos, Argentina.
April 2015 - December 2019
Position
- PhD Student
Description
- Studies on different mechanisms by which below-ground mutualists affect plant invasions
Education
April 2015 - January 2020
March 2007 - December 2014
Publications
Publications (20)
Belowground biota can deeply influence plant invasion. The presence of appropriate soil mutualists can act as a driver to enable plants to colonize new ranges. We reviewed the species of ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) that facilitate pine establishment in both native and non‐native ranges, and that are associated with their invasion into nonforest set...
AimsBiological invasions have historically been addressed mostly from an aboveground perspective, so little is known about the impacts of belowground invasions. We studied the impact of belowground invasions on growth of native tree species and test the possibility of novel interactions between native and non-native hosts and native and non-native...
Temperate and boreal forests are increasingly suffering from anthropic degradation. Ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) are symbionts with most temperate and boreal forest trees, providing their hosts with soil nutrients and water in exchange for plant carbon. This group of fungi is involved in woody plants' survival and growth and helps plants tolerate ha...
Positive interactions between non-native species can accelerate their invasion rate and exacerbate their impacts. This has been shown for non-native mammals that disperse invasive ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF), in turn facilitating the invasion of non-native tree species. Mammal-mediated dispersion is assumed to be the main mechanism of EMF long dist...
Symbiotic soil microbes can facilitate plant invasions, yet it is unclear whether the invasive capacity of plants can be explained by the invasiveness of their microbial symbionts. After compiling a global dataset on associations between non‐native invasive pine trees and ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF), we found that the interaction with invasive EMF...
Research Highlight discussing: Runnel, K., Lõhmus, P., Küngas, K., Marmor‐Ohtla, L., Palo, A., Pütsepp, G., Tamm, H., Tammekänd, I., & Lõhmus, A. (2024). Aerial eDNA contributes vital information for fungal biodiversity assessment. Journal of Applied Ecology, https://doi.org/10.1111/1365‐2664.14691. Fungi play key roles in ecosystems, yet it is not...
Purpose
Pinaceae (pine family) trees are native to the Northern Hemisphere and their invasion into the Southern Hemisphere is a growing problem threatening biological diversity. Pinaceae are ectomycorrhizal (ECM) and their invasions are facilitated by non-native and co-invasive ECM fungi. Nothofagaceae species (southern beeches) are dominant overst...
In this chapter, we review the current understanding of one of the most widespread and pervasive invasions at a global scale: tree species in the Pinaceae and their co-invasive ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF). In the first section, we present some concepts and definitions that are relevant to understand the co-invasion process. In the second section, w...
Many invasion hypotheses propose biotic interactions as the main mechanism to explain non‐native species' success. Despite the evidence that the strength of biotic interactions varies with abiotic context, it remains unclear whether the importance of the different mechanisms proposed to explain invasion predictably varies with the abiotic context a...
Introductions and invasions by fungi, especially pathogens and mycorrhizal fungi, are widespread and potentially highly consequential for native ecosystems, but may also offer opportunities for linking microbial traits to their ecosystem functions. In particular, treating ectomycorrhizal (EM) invasions, i.e., co-invasions by EM fungi and their EM h...
Nonnative conifers are widespread in the southern hemisphere, where their use as plantation species has led to adverse ecosystem impacts sometimes intensified by invasion. Mechanical removal is a common strategy used to reduce or eliminate the negative impacts of nonnative conifers, and encourage native regeneration. However, a variety of factors m...
There are many hypotheses aiming to explain invasion success, but evaluating individual hypotheses in isolation may hinder our ability to understand why some species invade and others fail. Here we evaluate the interaction between propagule pressure, seed predation and missed mutualism in the invasion success of the pine, Pinus ponderosa. We evalua...
Pathogen accumulation can decrease, increase, or not change invasive species abundance, but their impacts may persist in all scenarios.
We restate the key point in Policelli et al. (2017): the lack of evidence on pathogen accumulation controlling invasive populations calls for active management. As Flory et al. (2017) put clearly: ‘‘no waiting for pathogens to suppress invaders.’’
Many species in the family Pinaceae are invaders. These species are relatively easy to control because of some of their intrinsic characteristics and because they are highly visible and easy to eliminate. Many Pinaceae species have been well studied because of their use in forestry and their invasive behavior in many countries. The impacts of invas...
The majority of trees need mutualistic associations to thrive and survive. This can be a fundamental limitation for their ability to colonise new areas and consequently invade them. While many non-native tree species may form associations with local mutualists that substitute those present in their native range, others, probably with a higher degre...
AFLP methodology was applied to characterize three Coprotus species (C. lacteus, C. niveus, C. sexdecimsporus) so as to estimate the levels of polymorphism within species, to analyze the phenetic relationships among them, and to contrast the AFLP findings to those of a
previous RAPD study. The high number of AFLP bands obtained with the six assayed...
Questions
Questions (2)
I generally work with pine trees, oaks, and other tree species in greenhouse bioassays and I've always wondered whether there is a way to qualitatively assess plants' health, specially when harvesting.I usually take measures of plant performance (biomass, height, root lenght, etc.) and nutrient analysis, but sometimes a plant looks more yellow, 'less healthy', etc and I think I might be missing a lot of valuable information by only taking pictures and writing observations.
I wonder whether there is a published methodology that people use for these kind of things.
Thanks!
I'm looking for evidence showing that fITS7-ITS4 primers do a better job at capturing more EMF diversity in soil and root samples compared to ITS1f-ITS2 for Illumina seq. Thanks!!
