Bespoke strategies of Paxillus involutus to extract potassium from diverse phyllosilicates

Abstract

Phyllosilicates provide a primary source of minerals used by microorganisms and plants, particularly clay minerals, i.e., phyllosilicates of very small particle size. Fungi can actively break down (or “weather”) minerals to extract nutrients, but whether they use identical mechanisms when accessing different clay minerals is unclear. In addition, it is yet to be understood whether starvation stresses due to the limited availability of a mineral-nutrient would result in different weathering behaviours of microbes.