Carbon cycle models often lack explicit belowground organism activity, yet belowground organisms regulate carbon storage and release in soil. Ectomycorrhizal fungi are important players in the carbon cycle because they are a conduit into soil for carbon assimilated by the plant. It is hypothesized that ectomycorrhizal fungi can also be active decomposers when plant carbon allocation to fungi is...

The endophytic fungal communities of Polygonum acuminatum and Aeschynomene fluminensis were examined with respect to soil mercury (Hg) contamination. Plants were collected in places with and without Hg+2 for isolation and identification of their endophytic root fungi. We evaluated frequency of colonization, number of isolates and richness, indices of diversity and similarity, functional traits ...

GUO HC, WANG WB, LUO XH & WU XP. 2015. Characteristics of rhizosphere and bulk soil microbial communities in rubber plantations in Hainan Island, China. Phospholipid fatty acid analysis was used to investigate spatial variations in microbial communities of rhizosphere and bulk soil in rubber plantations in Hainan Island. Rhizosphere and bulk soil were collected from immature and mature rubber t...

Spore counts, species composition and richness of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, and soil glomalin contents were evaluated in a soil contaminated with Zn, Cu, Cd and Pb after rehabilitation by partial replacement of the contaminated soil with non-contaminated soil, and by Eucalyptus camaldulensis planting with and without Brachiaria decumbens sowing. These rehabilitation procedures were compared...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi form symbiotic associations with most plant species in terrestrial ecosystems, and are affected by environmental variations. To reveal the impact of disturbance on an AM fungal community under future global warming, we examined the abundance and community composition of AM fungi in both soil and mixed roots in an alpine meadow on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, Ch...

Soil bacteria and fungi play key roles in the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, yet our understanding of their responses to climate change lags significantly behind that of other organisms. This gap in our understanding is particularly true for drylands, which occupy ∼41% of Earth´s surface, because no global, systematic assessments of the joint diversity of soil bacteria and fungi have be...

Soil Fungi May Help in Lead Remediation Lead contaminates soil in many urban areas. Investigators have discovered that lead can be transformed by multiple soil fungi into a stable form known as chloropyromorphite, suggesting a potential new tool for cleaning up soil lead contamination. This ability of the fungi may help them to survive in contaminated locations. The authors write that “fungal m...

Symbioses may be important mechanisms of plant adaptation to their environment. We conducted a reciprocal inoculation experiment to test the hypothesis that soil fertility is a key driver of local adaptation in arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbioses. Ecotypes of Andropogon gerardii from phosphorus-limited and nitrogen-limited grasslands were grown with all possible "home and away" combinations o...

Small-scale heterogeneity of abiotic and biotic factors is expected to play a crucial role in species coexistence. It is known that plants are able to concentrate their root biomass into areas with high nutrient content and also acquire nutrients via symbiotic microorganisms such as arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. At the same time, little is known about the small-scale distribution of soil n...

INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Due to the specific work environment, farmers are exposed to various biological occupational hazard. Among these factors significant are fungi present in the grain and also in the soil. The fungi may be the cause of human diseases including skin infections, asthma, allergic rhinitis and many others. AIM The aim of this study was to quantify and identify species of...