A model for hyphae-induced interaction between plants

A model to simulate myccorhizal fungi-induced interaction between three plants is presented and discussed. We have constructed this three plant model starting from Thornley’s model for an isolated plant growth. We introduce then a coupling between the three plants, mediated by the hyphae. The role played by microorganisms is focused in phosphorus transfer between plants and this is thus the main ingredient of this extended model. We introduce a criterion of the conservation of the transferred phosphorus masses associated to the fungi action. The results show that the time to saturate the biomass of one of the plants can be reduced, keeping unchanged the saturation time for the others. Another possibility is that the coupling can redistribute the biomass among the plants. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]