Soil organisms can have important impacts on the structure, diversity, and invasion potential of plant communities. In particular, the short co-evolutionary history of nonnative plants with soil biota could confer unusual benefits or costs to hosts in the introduced range with consequences for invasion success. We used parallel pot and field studies to examine how soil biota (active or steriliz...

Despite the importance of arbuscular mycorrhizae to the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems (e.g. nutrient uptake, soil aggregation), and the increasing evidence of global warming, responses of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) to climate warming are poorly understood. In a field experiment using infrared heaters, we found effects of warming on AMF after one growing season in an annual grass...

Arbuscular mycorrhizas (AM) have mutualistic symbiosis with plants and thus efforts have been placed on application of these symbiotic relationships to agricultural and environmental fields. In this study, AM fungi were collected from 25 sites growing with 16 host plant species in Korea and cultured with Sorghum bicolor in greenhouse condition. AM fungal spores were extracted and identified usi...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, important plant mutualists, provide plants with nutrients such as phosphorus (P) in return for carbon. AM fungi also enhance the attractiveness of plants to aphids via effects on emissions of plant volatiles used in aphid host location. We tested whether increased P uptake by plants is the mechanism through which AM fungi alter the volatile profile of plants a...

Several studies, performed mainly in pots, have shown that arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis can mitigate the negative effects of water stress on plant growth. No information is available about the effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis on berseem clover growth and nitrogen (N) fixation under conditions of water shortage. A field experiment was conducted in a hilly area of inner Sicily, Ita...

VAM fungi play a vital role in improving the nutrient quality plants, increasing plants’ growth, helping protect plants against pathogen, and helps protecting them from salinity drought. Their functions range stress reduction to bioremediation heavy metal-polluted soils. The current review paper focuses on metal absorption, accumulation, of arbuscular mycorrhizal alleviating plants. Arbuscular ...