BACKGROUND Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) provide numerous services to their plant symbionts. Understanding climate change effects on AMF, and the resulting plant responses, is crucial for predicting ecosystem responses at regional and global scales. We investigated how the effects of climate change on AMF-plant symbioses are mediated by soil water availability, soil nutrient availability, ...

H ecologists focused on interspecific competition as the critical factor structuring plant communities. Interactions between plants, however, are likely to be mediated by myriad interactions with soil organisms (Bever et al. 1997). The vast majority of plants, for example, take up nutrients through interactions with root symbionts. Of these root symbionts, arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are ...

Most plants form root symbioses with arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, which provide them with phosphate and other nutrients. High soil phosphate levels are known to affect AM symbiosis negatively, but the underlying mechanisms are not understood. This report describes experimental conditions which triggered a novel mycorrhizal phenotype under high phosphate supply: the interaction between pea...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) play an important role in nutrient cycling processes and plant stress resistance. To evaluate the effect of Rhizophagus irregularis CD1 on plant growth promotion (PGP) and Verticillium wilt disease, the symbiotic efficiency of AMF (SEA) was first investigated over a range of 3% to 94% in 17 cotton varieties. The high-SEA subgroup had significant PGP effects in...

Arbuscular mycorrhizae (AM) fungi play a crucial role in the growth of soybean; however, the planting system employed is thought to have an effect on AM fungal communities in the rhizosphere. This study was performed to explore the influence of continuous soybean cropping on the diversity of Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, and to identify the dominant AM fungus during the seedling stage. Thr...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are obligate root symbionts that can protect their host plant against biotic stress factors such as plant-parasitic nematode (PPN) infection. PPN consist of a wide range of species with different life styles that can cause major damage in many important crops worldwide. Various mechanisms have been proposed to play a role in the biocontrol effect of AMF agains...

Root distribution and mycorrhizal associations were compared in primary, secondary and limestone forests in Xishuangbanna, southwest China. Soil cores to a depth of 20 cm were collected at random points from four 50 m2 quadrats in each forest type. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) associations were the only form of mycorrhiza found in all forest types. The primary forest was characterized by high ro...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are key components of soil micro-flora and obviously interact with other microorganisms in the rhizosphere which is the zone of influence of plant roots on microbial populations and other soil constituents. Keeping in view the importance of AM fungi, the present study was undertaken for assessing the AM fungal spore population dynamics in the rhizosphere soil and it...

Strigolactones (SLs) or SL-derived metabolite(s) have recently been shown to act as endogenous inhibitors of axillary bud outgrowth. SLs released from roots induce hyphal branching of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi that facilitate the uptake of inorganic nutrients, such as phosphate (Pi) and nitrate, by the host plants. Previous studies have shown that SL levels in root exudates are highly e...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can transfer nitrogen (N) to host plants, but the ecological relevance is debated, as total plant N and biomass do not generally increase. The extent to which the symbiosis is mutually beneficial is thought to rely on the stoichiometry of N, phosphorus (P) and carbon (C) availability. While inorganic N fertilization has been shown to elicit strong mutualism, c...