Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi benefit plants in response to major global change factors

Abstract

Land plants play a key role in global carbon cycling, but the potential role of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in the responses of a wide range of plant species to global change factors (GCFs) remains limited. Based on 1100 paired observations from 181 plant species, we conducted a meta‐analysis to test the role of AMF in plant responses to four GCFs: drought, warming, nitrogen (N) addition and elevated CO2. We show that AMF significantly ameliorate the negative effects of drought on plant performance. The GCFs N addition and elevated CO2 significantly enhance the performance of AM plants but not of non‐inoculated plants. AM plants show better performance than their non‐inoculated counterparts under warming, although neither of them showed a significant response to this GCF. These results suggest that AMF benefit plants in response to GCFs. Our study highlights the importance of AMF in enhancing plant performance under ongoing global change.

Diversity, Distribution, and applications of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in the Arabian Peninsula

“…In other words, even though it can be stated that elevated CO 2 concentration generally enhances the AMF activities, the same cannot be considered in terms of geographical distribution and variation. Similarly, there are a lot of studies available where the impact of increased CO 2 levels has been studied, however, all of them could not reach a similar conclusion with the affect stated as negative, positive, or insignificant ( Cotton et al, 2015 , Fu et al, 2022 , Hu et al, 2022 , Tang et al, 2023a ).…”

Bacteria Associated with Spores of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Improve the Effectiveness of Fungal Inocula for Red Raspberry Biotization

“…Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are commonly known to provide many benefits to the plant. AMF improve growth and nutritional quality of crops [ 4 , 48 ] and protect plants against environmental stress such as pathogens and abiotic environmental conditions [ 40 , 56 ]. Widespread occurrence of mycorrhizal symbiosis and the obligatory nature of this plant (fungus association for many plant species) have long directed the attention of the scientific community to the practical use of mycorrhiza in protection of endangered plants, in phytostabilization of toxic wastes and in sustainable agriculture to improve food security [ 8 , 39 , 54 ].…”

Forest carbon stocks increase with higher dominance of ectomycorrhizal trees in high latitude forests

“…Mycorrhizas represent the most widespread mutualistic symbioses established between plant roots and soil fungi 13 . Globally, mycorrhizas play various roles, including mediating nutrient cycling 14 , altering the respiratory activity of free-living soil microorganisms 15 , shaping soil C sequestration 16 , determining how plants respond to climate change 17 , and affecting plant population dynamics and species diversity by improving plant fitness and altering the strength of conspecific negative density dependence 18 , 19 . The two dominant types of mycorrhizal symbiosis, associated with nearly all tree species, are ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungi and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, but their forms and functions greatly differ 13 .…”