Anthropogenic disturbances play an increasingly important role in structuring the diversity and functioning of soil organisms such as arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. Frequently, multiple land-use practices, which may represent disturbances for AM fungal communities, operate simultaneously in different habitats. It is not known, however, how previous land-use history and specific habitat type influence AM fungal community response to disturbances. We applied mechanical (cutting to stimulate tillage) and chemical (herbicide addition) disturbances to AM fungal communities from meadow and arable field soils. Our results indicated that AM fungal communities from meadows, which previously had experienced mowing, were more species rich than communities from fields that had experienced intensive land-use practices. There were no significant differences, however, in the responses to disturbance of the AM fungal communities from field and meadow soils. We expected mechanical disturbance to promote taxa from the family Glomeraceae which are expected to exhibit a ruderal life-history strategy; instead, the abundance of this family increased in response to chemical disturbance. Simultaneous application of mechanical disturbance and herbicide decreased only the abundance of Diversisporaceae. No AM fungal families increased in abundance when both mechanical and chemical disturbances were applied simultaneously, but all disturbances increased the abundance of culturable AM fungi. Our study demonstrates that although chemical and mechanical forms of disturbance favor different AM fungal families, existing information about family-level characteristics may not adequately characterize the life history strategies of AM fungus species.
