Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi reduce soil nitrous oxide emission

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) play an important role in soil nitrogen cycling. However, the effect of AMF on soil N2O emission and its underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we conducted a Bayesian meta-analysis to determine whether AMF has an N2O mitigation potential and what are the potential mechanisms. We found that AMF significantly decreased soil N2O emission (with an effect size of −0.90) and increased microbial biomass nitrogen and plant biomass compared to the non-AMF treatment. The effect size of soil water content and plant biomass nitrogen showed significantly positive and negative correlations with the effect size of soil N2O emission. We propose a conceptual framework with three potential mechanisms that AMF could affect soil N2O emission for further work.