Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are one of the most common contaminants in soil. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi make host plants resistant to pollutants. This study aims to evaluate the impact of anthracene, phenanthrene and dibenzothiophene on the AM fungus Rhizophagus custos, isolated from soil contaminated by heavy metals and PAHs, under monoxenic conditions. We found a high level...

Trunk girdling can increase carbohydrate content above the girdling site and is an important strategy for inhibiting new shoot growth to promote flowering in cultivated litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn.). However, girdling inhibits carbohydrate transport to the root in nearly all of the fruit development periods and consequently decreases root absorption. The mechanism through which carbohydrates ...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are globally distributed, obligate, belowground symbionts that associate with up to 80% of all plant species (Smith and Read 2008; Kivlin et al. 2011; Öpik et al. 2013; Davison et al. 2015; Soudzilovskaia et al. 2015a). Typically, AM fungi improve host plant growth by providing soil nutrients (Smith and Read 2008), water (Augé 2001), and pathogen protection (Si...

Glomalin is a glycoprotein produced by arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, and the soil fraction containing glomalin is correlated with soil aggregation. Thus, factors potentially influencing glomalin production could be of relevance for this ecosystem process and for understanding AM fungal physiology. Previous work indicated that glomalin production in AM fungi may be a stress response, or rel...

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...

ycorrhizae are ancient, widespread associations between fungi and the roots of many species of plants. In these symbioses, the plants supply carbohydrates (the products of photosynthesis) to their fungal partners, which reciprocate by facilitating the uptake of mineral nutrients from the soil. In a reversal of the usual relationship , some non-photosynthetic plants — termed epiparasites — obtai...

1. Disturbance is assumed to be a major driver of plant community composition, but whether similar processes operate on associated soil microbial communities is less known. Based on the assumed trade-off between disturbance tolerance and competiveness, we hypothesize that a severe disturbance applied within a semi-natural grassland would shift the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal community to...