Diversity of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and Their Roles in Ecosystems (original) (raw)
Related papers
Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi – Their Life and Function in Ecosystem
Agriculture (Pol'nohospodárstvo), 2019
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi living in the soil closely collaborate with plants in their root zone and play very important role in their evolution. Their symbiosis stimulates plant growth and resistance to different environmental stresses. Plant root system, extended by mycelium of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, has better capability to reach the water and dissolved nutrients from a much larger volume of soil. This could solve the problem of imminent depletion of phosphate stock, affect plant fertilisation, and contribute to sustainable production of foods, feeds, biofuel, and raw materials. Expanded plant root systems reduce erosion of soil, improve soil quality, and extend the diversity of soil microflora. On the other hand, symbiosis with plants affects species diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and increased plant diversity supports diversity of fungi. This review summarizes the importance of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in relation to beneficial potential of their symbios...
New Phytologist, 1996
The mi'corrhizal symbiosis formed between plant roots and the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi or Glomales is of great interest to ecologists because of its potential influence on ecosystem processes, its role in determining plant diversity m natural communities and the ability of the fungi to induce a wide variety of growth responses in coexisting plant species. Little attention, however, has been paid to the ecological role of diversity of AM fungi. Difficulties in identification, the inability to grow the fungi in pure culture, problems of taxonomic classification, and a lack of basic information on the life histories of AM fungi hinder studies of the ecological significance of diversity of .AM fungi. Nucleic acid based techniques have the potential to fill this gap in our knowledge by offering better means of identification and the opportunity to study links between the genetic diversity of AM fungi and functional and morphological diversity. The application of genus-specific molecular markers has shown that different genera of AM fungi coexist in plant roots and that this is a common occurrence. Molecular techniques have alsO' shown that natural AM fungai populations exhibit unexpectedly high genetic diversity, despite the assumption that diversity in these seemingly asexual fungi should be low. The high diversity occurs in multicopy tibosomal genes and their internal transcribed spacers, which are normally well conserved and homogeneous within an individual organLsm. The results show that sequence heterogeneity of the ribosomal genes can occur even in single spores of AM fungi, and we discuss how genetic diversity m.ay be promoted and maintained. Contrasting results, indicating that genetic diversity among replicate spores from pot-cultured material is low (even though they contain within spore sequence heterogeneity), suggest that there are mechanisms which promote high genetic diversity of AM fungi in natural ecosystems.
2019
Intact whole native AMF communities occurring across a 100 m long field were used for the evaluation of plant performance, as determined by the actual fungal species colonizing host roots. The soil from distinct plots within a "hot spot" field was collected to set up 54 experimental units where three different plant species were grown, in order to test whether the whole native AMF communities were able to differentially affect plant growth, to assess the genetic identity of the AMF actually colonizing the tested plants and to analyze their community composition in the different hosts. Molecular analyses revealed that plant growth and nutrition of the crop plants was differentially affected by the diverse native arbuscular mycorrhizal communities colonizing the roots of the three plants, whose 2 performance varied depending on the identity of plant hosts and fungal symbionts, more than on a rich and diversified AMF community. Such results, improving our understanding of AMF distribution at the local scale, represent a starting point allowing the selection, isolation and characterization of the most efficient AMF assemblages to be used as inoculants in sustainable food production systems.
Biology and Fertility of Soils, 2017
Intact whole native AMF communities occurring across a 100 m long field were used for the evaluation of plant performance, as determined by the actual fungal species colonizing host roots. The soil from distinct plots within a "hot spot" field was collected to set up 54 experimental units where three different plant species were grown, in order to test whether the whole native AMF communities were able to differentially affect plant growth, to assess the genetic identity of the AMF actually colonizing the tested plants and to analyze their community composition in the different hosts. Molecular analyses revealed that plant growth and nutrition of the crop plants was differentially affected by the diverse native arbuscular mycorrhizal communities colonizing the roots of the three plants, whose 2 performance varied depending on the identity of plant hosts and fungal symbionts, more than on a rich and diversified AMF community. Such results, improving our understanding of AMF distribution at the local scale, represent a starting point allowing the selection, isolation and characterization of the most efficient AMF assemblages to be used as inoculants in sustainable food production systems.
The Ecology of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi
Arbuscular mycorrhiza is a mutually beneficial biological association between species in the fungal phylum Glomeromycota and higher plants roots. The symbiosis is thought to have afforded green plants the opportunity to invade dry land ca 450 Ma ago and the vast majority of extant terrestrial plants retain this association. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi perform various ecological functions in exchange for host photosynthetic carbon that almost always contribute to the fitness of hosts from an individual to community level. Recent AM fungal research, increasingly delving into the ‘Black Box’, suggests that species in this phylum may play a key facilitative role in below-ground micro- and meso-organism community dynamics, even more perhaps, that of a bioengineer. The ubiquitous nature of the symbiosis in extant flora and the fact that variations from the AM symbiosis are recent events suggest that Glomeromycota and plant roots coevolved. This review considers aspects of AM fungal ecology emphasizing past and present importance of the phylum in niche to global ecosystem function. Nutrient exchange, evolution, taxonomy, phenology, below-ground microbial interaction, propagule dissemination, invasive plants interactions, the potential role in phytoremediation and some of the factors affecting AM fungal biology are discussed. We conclude that it is essential to include AM association in any study of higher plants in natural environments in order to provide an holistic understanding of ecosystems.
Agriculture, 2023
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are biotrophic fungi that form an association with plant roots and render benefits in nutrient uptake, disease control and plant tolerance to stress conditions. Plant–mycorrhizal fungi interaction has been proposed as a suitable tool for contributing to sustainable agriculture and reducing the dependence on agrochemicals. Interactions between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are regulated by several factors ranging from host traits to environmental conditions that affect the species richness, diversity and functions. In this review, we highlight recent advances on how host traits and environmental conditions in farming systems and/or in natural ecosystems affect the richness, physiology and ecological functions of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi while specifying the gaps that need to be filled through research.
Biodiversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in agroecosystems
Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 1999
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi [AMF] are soil fungi which form a mutualistic symbiosis with the roots of plants. A variety of benefits to the host have been ascribed to mycorrhizae, most often enhanced uptake of immobile nutrients from the soil, notably P. An understanding of the impacts of agronomic practices upon communities of these fungi would help to ensure an opportunity for the utilization of the symbiosis and contribute to the success of sustainable agriculture. Measurement of the diversity of AMF communities in field soils presents a variety of challenges, among them the difficulty of identifying field collected spores, the detection of non-sporulating members of the community, and the lack of relation between functional diversity and the morphological diversity of spores used to delineate species. These challenges, as well as current efforts to overcome them, are discussed and recent research elaborating the effects of agromonic practices upon AMF communities and the effectiveness of mycorrhizae is presented. ©Elsevier Science B.V.
Ecology, 1998
Almost all natural plant communities contain arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). We hypothesized that the species composition of AMF communities could have the potential to determine plant community structure if the growth response to different AMF species or to communities of AMF species varies among plant species. To test the existence of such a differential response we conducted a pot experiment where each of three plant species, Hieracium pilosella, Bromus erectus, and Festuca ovina were inoculated with each of four AMF species, or with a mixture of these four AMF species, or were uninoculated. The AMF species originated from a calcareous grassland in which the three plant species also coexisted.
Specificity and resilience in the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi of a natural woodland community
Journal of …, 2007
15 20 Tel: +44 (0)1904 328614 Fax: +44 (0)1904 328505. Running headline: Specificity and symbiotic function in mycorrhizal fungi 1 SUMMARY 1. While tThe composition of communities of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi can have a large effect on the performance of their plant hosts, but the role of individual fungal species in shaping this response is as yet unresolved. 5 10 15 20 25 2. We have used the fungicide benomyl to alter the community of AM fungi in undisturbed monoliths of soil in a natural community. Changes in the community were characterised by root colonisation (%RLC), cloning, sequencing and tRFLP of a partial SSUrDNA fragment. Eleven plant species were sufficiently abundant in the monoliths to be examined.