Influence of Sowing Season and Host Crop Identity on the Community Structure of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Colonizing Roots of Two Different Gramineous and Leguminous Crop Species

Abstract

Introduction of cover crops may improve the diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in roots and soil under crop rotational systems; therefore, it is necessary to determine the potential for AMF communities to improve sustainable food production. We investigated the impact of cover crops, including wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), pea (Pisum sativum L.), and hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth.), on the AMF communities in their roots in autumn and spring sowing seasons with PCR-DGGE analysis. Although all four cover crops impacted the AMF community structure in roots, the diversity of AMF communities was unchanged among crop type or sowing season. Redundancy analysis (RDA) demonstrated that AMF communities within crop type were significantly different. However, the AMF community structures were not influenced by growing season, suggesting that growth stage in crops may be more responsive to shaping AMF community structure in crop roots than host crop identity.

Impact of Phosphorus Fertilization on Tomato Growth and Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungal Communities

“…This could be one reason why P fertilizer input did not change the diversity of the AMF communities in tomato plants. Additionally, the impact of soil P on the diversity of AMF communities still remains a controversial subject, and the results could be related to P application rates [80], sampling times [83], host plant species [84,85], and agricultural management [86][87][88][89][90]. Our results were inconsistent regarding P fertilization on the diversity of AMF communities compared to previous reports.…”

Maize Productivity, Mycorrhizal Assessment, Chemical and Microbiological Soil Attributes Influenced by Maize-Forage Grasses Intercropping

“…However, U. humidicola presented similar mycorrhizal colonization to monocropped and intercropped maize. Host preference of AMF has been described for annual and perennial herbaceous species [51], especially related with cultivated species [52]. Higher root colonization on maize than verified in the present study, ranging from 60 to 80%, was observed by Garcá-Gonzáles et al [53], influenced by barley (Hordeum vulgare L.. cv.…”

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal activity responses to winter cover crops in a sunflower and maize cropping system

“…Finally, we remark the different pattern for barley and vetch in both sunflower and maize crops in which the benefits to barley on AMF were larger compared to vetch. Higo et al (2015) compared in a pot experiment the performance of four potential CCs (two legumes and two grasses) and found higher values of AMF colonization in the roots of barley compared with hairy vetch. They attributed these differences to host selectivity.…”